Frey, Samuel C.

Born: 1799-02-17 New York

Died: 1877-02-24 Alabama

Flourished: 1838 to 1869 Ohio

Samuel C. Frey, jeweler and newspaper editor, was born in St. Johnsville, New York, and trained locally in gold and silver smithing. He worked as a jeweler in various New York cities, including Syracuse and Watertown, before following his trade in Brockville, Canada, beginning about 1831. On the advent of the 1837 rebellion in Upper Canada, Frey was threatened with arrest over his presumed sympathies with the rebels, and he fled to the United States. He settled briefly at Morristown, New York, but was suspected of violating neutrality laws and harming British interests, and relocated with his family to Canton, Ohio in 1838. Frey lived in Canton for twenty years. He moved to Springfield, Ohio in 1858, where he assisted his son, George H. Frey, in the editing of the Springfield Republic. In 1869 Frey relocated to Decatur, Alabama, where he died. He married Susan C. Calhoun and the pair had three children. In politics, Frey was a Republican.

Northern Alabama Historical and Biographical (Birmingham, AL: Smith & De Land, 1888), 335-36; Portrait and Biographical Album of Green and Clark Counties, Ohio (Chicago: Chapman Bros., 1890), 895, 897; The History of Clark County, Ohio (Chicago: W. H. Beers, 1881), 828; A Biographical Record of Clark County Ohio (New York and Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1902), 93, 94; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Stark County, OH, 497; Samuel C. Frey to Abraham Lincoln; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 1, Springfield, Clark County, OH, 126; The Southern Plantation (Montgomery, AL), 8 March 1877, 9:3; Gravestone, Ferncliff Cemetery, Springfield, OH.