Samuel S. Nelles was worthy of Methodist parents, and was born October 17, 1823 at Mount Pleasant, near Brantford.

His great natural abilities had received superior cultivation and exercise. He attended the Lewiston Academy, New York, in 1839-40, of which the Rev. Reuben Close was principal, and J.G. Saxe, Esq., the poet, one of the tutors. The next year he removed to the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, New York, where he was converted and joined the Methodist Church, of which, therefore he had been a member some years when he was introduced as a probationer into the Canada Conference.

Two years after, he matriculated at Victoria College (of which he was destined to be long the President), under the principalship of the Rev. Dr. Ryerson, where he remained two years, and was distinguished for two things - intellect and eloquence. For some reason he concluded to graduate at an older institution, and wn to Middletown University, Connecticut, from which he received his degree in arts, in 1846.

The intermediate year between his graduation and his entrance on the full ministry of the Word, he conducted the Acadamy at Newburg, of this Province, and was recommended to the work of the ministry by the Napanee Quarterly Official Meeting, under the Superintendency of the Rev. George Goodson.

We have reason to believe that he had excercised his preaching gifts the greater part of his religious life.

In person Mr. Nelles was medium-sized, agile, and dark-complexioned. Had he been left in the pastorate, few minister would have equalled him as a pulpit man.

...from the minutes of the 1847 Wesleyan Methodist Conference in Toronto C.W.