BIOS: Samuel D. LIVENGOOD, Meyersdale, Somerset County, PA

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Sharon Trosan

Copyright 2007.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/
________________________________________________

BIOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Vol. XXXII, Containing Life Sketches of Leading Citizens of 
Bedford and Somerset Counties, Pennsylvania. Boston, Biographical Review 
Publishing Company: 1899, pp 308-309.

  Samuel D. Livengood, president of the Farmers' Bank, Meyersdale, was born in 
Elk Lick, Pa., December 20, 1835, son of David and Nancy (Meyers) Livengood.  
The immigrant progenitor of the family was his great-grandfather, the Rev. Peter 
Livengood, a native of Germany and a descendant of a long line of honorable 
ancestors who resided upon the banks of the Rhine.
  Coming to America with his education and his Bible as his only means of 
support, the Rev. Peter Livengood settled in Eastern Pennsylvania at a time when 
the German language was not as prevalent as it was later.  He was a minister and 
a teacher.  Having acquired considerable property, he afterward visited the 
Fatherland.  Returning to Pennsylvania some two years later, he resided in Bucks 
County until 1760, when he crossed the Allegheny Mountains into Western 
Pennsylvania and settled at what is now Elk Lick.  Selecting a tract of land 
near Salisbury, he marked it off by blazing trees; and by exercising his powers 
of energy and perseverance he succeeded in clearing a good farm.  The toil and 
exposure of pioneering seem not to have shortened his existence, as he lived to 
be ninety-six years old.  His wife, whom he married in Bucks County, died at the 
age of ninety.  The first night after his arrival in Elk Lick he camped beneath 
a spreading tree, and under its branches was born his daughter Elizabeth, who 
afterward became the wife of Jacob Breneisen.  His other children were: 
Christian; Peter; John; Christine, who became Mrs. Faik; Maria, who married 
Jacob Sayler; Catherine, who married William Aug; Annie who married Jacob 
Kepple; Frances, who married David Meller; and Barbara, who married Caleb 
Yoeder.
  John Livengood, the grandfather of Samuel D., was a native of Elk Lick, where 
he followed general farming throughout the active period of his life.  He 
married a Miss Hartman, and had a family of five children; namely, Daniel, 
Jacob, David, Susan, and Elizabeth.
  David Livengood, the father above named, was a lifelong resident of Elk Lick, 
and like his ancestors was an energetic tiller of the soil.  He died at the age 
of sixty-two years.  He was prominent in both religious and governmental 
affairs, officiating as a preacher in the German Baptist church, and holding 
various town and county offices.  Nancy Meyers Livengood, his wife, who was a 
daughter of Michael Meyers, of Berlin, Pa., became the mother of ten children, 
four of whom are living, namely:  Samuel D., the subject of this sketch; Susan, 
who married Jacob M. Lichty, and resides in Summit township; Jacob D., who is in 
mercantile business in Salisbury, and is a member of a firm having stores in 
Kansas; and Annie, who married John L. Sayler, of Friedens, this county.
  Samuel D. Livengood attended school in Somerset borough.  At the age of 
twenty-one he went to Addison, Pa., where he remained two years, and at the end 
of that time he engaged in mercantile business in Grantsville, Md.  He later 
established himself in trade at Meyersdale, continuing in business until April 
1, 18873, when, in company with a partner, he opened a private bank, which in 
1878 was incorporated as First National Bank of Meyersdale, and with Mr. 
Livengood as president.  That enterprise went into liquidation in 1880, and, 
purchasing the interests of the other stockholders, he resumed private banking 
by organizing the Farmers' Bank, of which he has since been the official head.  
He is interested in coal mining, is the principal stockholder in the Meyersdale 
Electric Light, Heat, and Power Company, which was incorporated February 21, 
1898, and he also carried on a general store.
  In 1855 Mr. Livengood married Harriet, daughter of Samuel C. Livengood, of 
Salisbury.  Mr. and Mrs. Livengood are the parents of two children.  Their 
daughter, Annie Grace Independence, whose birth took place on the Fourth of 
July, is now the wife of Hugo Lorentz, cashier of the Farmers' Bank.  Mr. 
Livengood's grandfather and Samuel C. Livengood's father (Mrs. Livengood's 
grandfather) were brothers.
  Mr. Livengood has served as School Director and a member of the Town Council.  
In politics he acts with the Republican party.  He belongs to the German Baptist 
church.