Samuel Kirkman
FamilySearch ID: LH8T-V2C
(1845-1931)
Private, Company K, 77th Illinois Kickapoo Township, Peoria County, Illinois
Samuel Kirkman was born on May 16, 1845 in Harwood, Bolton borough, Lancashire, England, which is about 10 miles northwest of the city of Manchester. He was one of at least five men in Company K who were born near Manchester, England. Samuel was the son of Robert Kirkman (1811-1891) and Alice Bromley Kirkman (1815-1890). Samuel had five brothers and five sisters. Samuel was christened on August 17, 1845 at Bolton le Moors Christ Church in Walmsley (Egerton), Lancashire, England. In 1857, when Samuel was 12, his family emigrated to America aboard the full-rigged ship West Point, which arrived in New York on December 7, 1857.
Sometime between their arrival in 1857 and the 1860 Census, the Kirkman family re-located to Kickapoo Township in Peoria County, Illinois. By 1860, Samuel was working as a farm hand (and likely living with) the Richard Howard family near Kickapoo. When the Civil War began in April of 1861, he was just a month short of his sixteenth birthday.
In the summer of 1862, at the urging of governors from several northern states, Abraham Lincoln called for 300,000 more volunteers to suppress the rebellion. On Wednesday, August 13, 1862, despite the fact that he was nine months short of the minimum enlistment age of 18, Samuel Kirkman volunteered for service in the Union Army, becoming a Private in Company K of the 77th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Muster records indicate that he stood 5 feet 10½ inches tall with grey eyes, dark hair, and a dark complexion. During the Civil War, records show that Samuel was slightly wounded at the Battle of Fort Hindman (a.k.a. Arkansas Post) on January 11, 1863. Nearly three years after enlistment, Samuel mustered out of his regiment on July 10, 1865.
For Samuel, the end of war meant a return to farming in Peoria County. On February 21, 1867, at the age of 21, he married Louisa Greenhalgh (born February 24, 1845) in Peoria, Illinois, with Reverend J. H. Morron performing the ceremony. Like Samuel, Louisa had also been born in Bolton, Lancashire, England. In the years that followed, the Kirkmans had three children who survived infancy - Alice Ann (b. 1868), Mary (or "Millie") (b. 1871), and Robert (b. 1873).
In 1870, the couple moved to Richwoods Township, closer to the city of Peoria.
In 1874, they moved back to Kickapoo Township, and in 1898 they moved to Logan Township, which is southwest of Kickapoo Township.
Because of his honorable discharge, Samuel was eligible for a government pension and received one. His wife Louisa died on September 9, 1901, at the age of 56. Samuel outlived his wife by 30 years, dying on September 13, 1931 at the age of 86. He and his wife are buried in Cottonwood Cemetery, near the small town of Edwards in Peoria County, Illinois.
Ancestral Connections: Years after the war, on Thursday, February 18, 1892, Samuel Kirkman's daughter (Alice Ann Kirkman) married Daniel Slane's grandson (John Franklin Doubet), thereby connecting Samuel Kirkman to Daniel Slane's family. Daniel Slane had briefly been part of the 77th Illinois before the authorities realized that, at age 58, he was too old to serve in the army.
Fellow soldiers Jacob and John LaFollette were the nephews of Daniel Slane's wife, Mahala LaFollette Slane, so they also became kin with Samuel Kirkman because of this same 1892 marriage.
And as a final consequence of this 1892 Kirkman-Doubet marriage, Samuel Kirkman would become the author's great- great grandfather, Daniel Slane would become the author's 3rd great grandfather, and the LaFollette brothers would become the author's first cousins, 4 times removed.
Samuel Kirkman's younger sister Mary Jane (1846-1911) married William W. King in February of 1866. Like Samuel, King had served as a Private in Company K of the 77th Illinois, making him the husband of the author's 2nd great-grandaunt.
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