Samuel Smith Galey. But few of the residents of Montgomery County, had lived within its borders for so long a period of time as did Mr. Galey, who was a son of one of its early pioneers, and might himself have laid claim to that title, as he entered land from the Government in Union Township more than sixty years ago, when this part of the country was an almost unbroken wilderness, the home of the Indians, and where deer, panthers, and other wild beasts had their lair. That tract of forest-covered land still comprises a part of his late farm on section 24, cleared and improved by the hard and unremitting toil known only to the original settlers of the frontier.

Mr. Galey was born August 26, 1809, in Jessamine County, Ky., and lived there until he was three months old, when the family moved to Shelby County, in the same State. His father and grandfather both bore the name of Samuel Galey. The latter was of Irish birth, and came to this country when a boy, living first in Pennsylvania, whence he removed to North Carolina during the Revolution, and served with Sumner in he Continental Army. He married Miss Sallie Moore, a daughter of James Moore, a Pennsylvania farmer.

Samuel Galey, Jr., lived in North Carolina until after the Revolution, and then settled in Kentucky, on the Kentucky River near Frankfort, where he engaged in farming. He was married in Jessamine County, that State, to Miss Nancy, daughter of William Scott, a prominent pioneer farmer of Kentucky. After their marriage the Galeys settled in the home on the banks of the Kentucky River which was the birthplace of our subject. Soon after he was born they went to Shelby County to live, and Samuel continued to till the soil in that region until he came to Indiana in 1829. In that year he brought his family to this county, and took up eighty acres of land in Union Township, and made it his home until he retired from active business to Crawfordsville. He was much prospered as a farmer, and when he died left each of his children eighty acres of land as their share of the property he had accumulated by his untiring industry. He was a stanch member of the Presbyterian Church, and was a sturdy Whig in his political faith. He passed away February 16, 1876, and was buried in the Odd Fellows’ Cemetery at Crawfordsville, by the side of his wife, who died February 16, 1862. Of the children born to them all are dead.

Samuel Galey was twenty years old when he accompanied his parents to this State. He entered eighty acres of land just where his widow lives, bought a tract of one hundred and sixty acres next to it, and purchased a good deal of other realty besides. He had a large and well-conducted farm of three hundred and seventy-three acres of rich land, which he admirably tilled, and the place was supplied with substantial improvements, and well kept up. Mr. Galey had always been a general farmer, and his farm was stocked with a good class of cattle, horses, etc. He had been an important factor in developing the agricultural resources of the township and county, and the people among whom he lived so many years honored him not only as an old settler, but as a thoroughly good citizen, as an upright man, and as a good neighbor in every sense of the term. In his social relations he was long identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Politically, he was a Whig in early manhood and voted for Henry Clay, and after the formation of the Republican party he entered its ranks.