Rev. Samuel H. Raudebaugh. There are many interesting data to be noted in reviewing the career of this venerable and revered citizen, who is living virtually retired in the Village of Dacoma, Woods County, after having served all with consecrated zeal and devotion for nearly half a century as a clergyman of the United Brethren Church. He retired from the active work of the ministry in December, 1914, after having been a member of the Oklahoma conference of the denomination for the year that marked the admission of the state to the Union. His life has been one of signal consecration to the service of the Divine Master and to the aiding and uplifting of his fellow men, the while his fine intellectual powers and broad and varied experience have made him a potent force in connection with practical affairs. He is a native of the old Buckeye State and a scion of one of its sterling pioneer families, and he represented that state as a valiant soldier of the Union during the Civil war, in which two of his younger brothers likewise took part. In the "piping times of peace" Mr. Raudebaugh has ever manifested the same intrinsic spirit of loyalty :ind patriotism that prompted him thus to go forth in defense of the national integrity, and he has proved true to duty in all the relations of a significantly active and useful career.

Rev. Samuel H. Raudebaugh was born on a farm near Lancaster, the judicial center of Fairfield County, Ohio, and the date of his nativity was September 29, 1842. He is a son of Rev. Abraham and Susana (Simons) Raudebaugh, both likewise natives of Ohio and representatives of worthy pioneer families of that commonwealth. Rev. Abraham Raudebaugh was born on the 19th of September, 1820, and was reared and educated in his native state, where he became a prosperous farmer and an able and honored local minister of the United Brethren Church, his work in the ministry having been initiated in 1854 and having terminated with his death, which occurred at Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio, in August, 1859. His marriage to Miss Susana Simons was solemnized in 1841, his wife, who was born in the year 1822, having survived him by more than a score of years and having passed the closing period of her life at Lawrence, Kansas, where she was summoned to the life eternal on the 18th of January, 1882, secure in the reverent affection of all who had come within the sphere of her gentle and gracious influence. Of the ten children, Rev. Samuel H., of this review, is the first born, and concerning the other children brief record is here given in respective order of their birth: Susan died in infancy; Peter O., who is a resident of Herington, Dickinson County, Kansas, where he established his residence in 1866, was a gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war, as a member of Company K, Sixty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry; Perry F., who now maintains his home in the City of Seattle, Washington, served in the Civil war as a member of the One Hundred and Ninety-sixth Ohio Volunteer Infantry; Katherine resides in Huron County, Ohio, and .lane is the wife of Frank Wilson of that county; the next two children were twin daughters who died in infancy; Miss Rosa Ann Rebecca resides at Herington, Kansas; and Abraham W. died at the age of ten years.

Rev. Samuel H. Raudebaugh is indebted to the schools of Fairfield and Hancock Counties, Ohio, for his early educational discipline, which was supplemented by an effective course in a well ordered normal school in Allen County, that state. As a young man he put his scholastic attainments to practical test and utilization and was for several years a successful and popular teacher in the schools of Putnam County, Ohio.

When the Civil war was precipitated on a divided nation Mr. Raudebaugh waited only for consistent opportunity to tender his aid in defense of the Union, and his military career, marked by many thrilling incidents, shall ever redound to the honor of his name. On the 5th of December, 1862, he enlisted as a private in Company K, Sixty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, his brother, Peter O., having become a member of the same company. Mr. Raudebaugh enlisted as a recruit to this regiment, which was at the time attached to the Army of the Cumberland, under Gen. O. O. Howard. Mr. Raudebaugh lived up to the full tension of the great internecine conflict and participated with his command in sixteen important battles, besides many skirmishes and other minor engagements. He took part in and was captured at the battle of Stone’s River, but by feigning death he contrived to make good his escape. He was in the battle of Missionary Ridge and in all the incidental engagements of the Atlanta campaign, from that of Rocky Face Ridge, on the 8th of May, 1864, to the battles of Atlanta and Jonesboro, terminating the summer’s campaign, on September 4th of that year. At the battle of Franklin, Tennessee, November 30, 1864, he was captured by the enemy, and for four months and one day he was confined in the odious Andersonville Prison, from which he was released on the 31st of March, 1865. With other comrades who had there been confined he then proceeded to the City of Vicksburg, and with many other Union soldiers boarded the ill-fated Mississippi River packet-steamer Sultana, retained as a transport vessel in the Federal service, for the purpose of making his way back to his home state. On the 27th of April, 1865, as history records as one of the most lamentable incidents of the Civil war, this steamer was literally blown into fragments by the explosion of its boilers, the result of the frightful disaster being that 1,457 men, principally Union soldiers, lost their lives. Mr. Raudebaugh was among the few survivors of this memorable disaster, and though he had been fortunate in having escaped other than nominal wounds in the many important battles in which he had taken part, he received severe injuries in the wrecking of the Sultana, the survivors of which great disaster do not exceed 100 in 1915. Mr. Raudebaugh finally arrived at Camp Chase, at Columbus, Ohio, and there he received his honorable discharge on the 20th of May, 1865. His continued interest in his old comrades has been shown by his active and appreciative affiliation with the Grand Army of the Republic, in which he has served as chaplain and held other official positions.

After the close of the war Mr. Raudebaugh purchased a farm in Putnam County, Ohio, where for two years he devoted his attention to agricultural pursuits and to teaching in the district schools during the winter terms. In 1867, after careful study and other earnest preparation, he entered the ministry of the United Brethren Church, of which he had become a member when a mere boy. He pursued a thorough course of ecclesiastical and philosophical reading under the auspices of the Sandusky Conference of the United Brethren Church and was then formally ordained a clergyman of this church. He continued his ministerial services in the Sandusky Conference of Ohio, held divers important pastoral charges and was given distinguished conference preferments, and labored with all of zeal and ability in his native state until he was transferred to the conference of the newly organized State of Oklahoma, in 1907. During his first year of service in this new field of labor he held a pastoral charge at Alva, Woods County, and for three years thereafter he had pastoral charge of the United Brethren congregation at Dacoma. He resigned his active pastorate in December, 1914, and is now living virtually retired in his pleasant home in Dacoma, though he is still retained on the supernumerary ministerial list of his church and holds himself ready to respond to all calls made upon him for further service. He is well known in Woods County and commands the highest place in popular confidence and esteem. In addition to being a comrade of the Grand Army of the Republic he is affiliated also with the Masonic fraternity and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Mr. Raudebaugh entered a soldier’s claim to a tract of land in Oklahoma prior to the admission of the state to the Union, and he perfected his title to this property in 1891.

Mr. Raudebaugh has been thrice wedded. On the 2d of October, 1862, he married Miss Sarah E. Godfrey, who was born November 29, 1842, and whose death occurred February 14, 1870. Of this union were born four children: Ruth Jane was born November 1, 1866, and died May 4, 1887; Mary Ann was born November 22, 1865, and died on the 4th of the following month; Laura E. was born February 14, 1869, and died on the 14th of the following month; John Henry was born February 5, 1870, and now resides in the City of Toledo, Ohio.

On the 26th of May, 1870, Mr. Raudebaugh wedded Mrs. Caroline W. Baker, who was born July 22, 1834, and who passed to eternal rest on the 4th of February, 1873, the one child of this union being Grace Maria, who was born November 27, 1872, and who is the wife of Elijah Quisno, of Port Clinton, Ohio.

On the 17th of August, 1873, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Raudebaugh to Mrs. Amelia A. Mugg, widow of Wheeler Mugg. Mrs. Raudebaugh has one daughter by her first marriage–Grace B., who was born May 11, 1869, and who is now the wife of Adam Vollmer, a representative farmer of Woods County, Oklahoma, their two children being Hallie L. and Graham T.