Samuel A Courier

Samuel A. Courier, was born in Windsor County, Vermont in January 29, 1793, to Peter and Mehitable Courier. He married Nancy A. Amsden, the daughter of Abraham Amsden and and Submit Morse on January 21, 1812, in Stowe, Lamoille County, Vermont.


By 1830, Samuel and Nancy Courier were in Saybrook Township, Ashtabula County, Ohio; and by 1840 there were in LaPorte County, Indiana, and in 1850, there were in Sycamore, DeKalb County, Illinois. At some point in the 1850s, they moved to Holt County, Missouri


They arrived in Nemaha County, Kansas, in 1858, with their sons, Isaac Billings Billings Courier and Lovader S. Courier, and their daughter Mary Ann Courier Johnson and her husband George Johnson.

Samuel A. Courier and his daughter Mary Ann Johnson are buried in Sabetha Cemetery. Weltha Jane Johnson Hutton Becker, the daughter of George and Mary Ann Johnson, is buried in Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery in Seneca.


Lovader S. Courier was living in Nemaha County in 1865, but died May 10, 1869. He may be buried in Nemaha County, but his wife died in Bourbon County in 1875.


Samuel A. Courier:



The Sabetha Herald, 5 April 1923:



If graves should yawn and the occupants come out, there is one in the Sabetha Cemetery which might divulge a history of adventure and romance. It is that of Samuel Courier, and the inscription on the marble slab, yellow with age, is: "Samuel Courier, born January 29 1793. Died July 27 1863." Samuel Courier was a soldier in the war of 1812, at which time he was nineteen years of age. Where he was born, when he came to Sabetha, the oldest inhabitants here do not know. E.L. Moner, adjutant of the Sabetha G.A.R. Post, says that for twenty years the G.A.R. has decorated the grave of Samuel Courier, knowing him to have been a soldier in the war of 1812, but of his history they knew nothing. He is forgotten."


The Sabetha Herald, 3 May 1923, George W. Williams:


I see by your last week's paper that Samuel Courier has long been forgotten except by one or two men at Sabetha. I was well acquainted with him. He was a soldier of 1812 and the first celebration held at Seneca, Kansas, he marched at the head of the procession and played the fife. He was an old man then.

He is related to some of Nemaha county's substantial citizens. He was George Johnson's grandfather. George married Sabetha's Miss Naomi Storm.

He has great, great grandchildren here. He was Sam F. Johnson's great grandfather; Virgil Johnson's great, great, great grandfather. Many old Deer Creekers remember him but never knew he was buried in the Sabetha Cemetery.

Following are recollections and historical records of the grave of Samuel Courier. Samuel Courier was the great grandfather of Mrs. Frank Turner of Sabetha.

Samuel Courier and his two sons, Isaac and Lovader, came from Holt County, Mo. in 1858, bought a half section of land lying one mile south of Sabetha Cemetery, one quarter on each side of what is now the county line road. On the quarter in Nemaha County stood the Jim Lane Fort, made of logs perhaps twelve or fourteen feet long, hewn out square with square port holes. This was then used as a corn crib.

Samuel Courier, who was George W. Johnson's grandfather and great grandfather of Ollie, died in 1862 and was buried in what they thought to be the Sabetha Cemetery, but was in the road now east of the cemetery and later when the cemetery was laid out this grave was moved, together with another, the daughter of Samuel Courier and mother of Mr. Johnson. After the death of the father and a succession of droughts the sons became discouraged and moved back to Holt County, Mo.

Scott Hufford, originally from Dodge City, Kansas, now living in Beverly, Massachusetts.  dscotth57@comcast.net

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