My Genealogy Hound

Armistead Hamilton, an enterprising farmer of Knox County, was born September 5, 1817, in Loudoun County, Va., and is the eldest of five children born to Rebecca (Reed) and David Hamilton, natives of Virginia, where they were reared, married, and lived until the spring of 1827, when they immigrated to Franklin County, Ind. There they improved a farm until the spring of 1844, when they went still further west, and located in Knox County, Mo. Then they located upon a tract of land purchased in Fabius Township, Knox County, where they resided until their respective deaths, in 1858 and 1877. The father engaged in coopering while in his native State, but afterward devoted his time to farming. Our subject received a limited education at the common schools of Indiana. At the age of seventeen he began an apprenticeship at the house-joining trade, and continued at the same three years, and at the expiration of that time he started in business for himself, working at his newly-learned trade until he accompanied his parents to Missouri in 1844. He then settled in Knox County, upon a tract of land he had previously entered, and where he has resided most of the time since, engaged in farming and working at his trade. At the outbreak of the late war he enlisted in the Confederate Army, under Col. Joe Porter, and remained in service six months. Not being well, he then left the army, and went to Shelby, Ill., from Arkansas, and a year later moved his family there also. There he remained engaged at his trade until the close of the war, when he returned to his home in Knox County. November 22, 1837, he was married to Sarah D., daughter of Samuel Murphy, a native of New Jersey, and who was born in New Jersey in 1816, coming to Franklin County, Ind., with her parents when three years old. Eight children have been born to this union, six of whom are living, viz.: Samuel and Elizabeth, twins (the latter being wife of John E. Walker), David Newton, Emily (wife of J. T. Lewis), Priscilla (wife of Dr. Alexander Magee) and James B. Our subject now owns a fine farm of 220 acres, which, when he bought it, was a vast wilderness, but is now finely improved and cultivated, the result of the hard labor and good management of himself and wife. Politically he is a Democrat, and cast his first presidential vote for James K. Polk in 1840. He was elected justice of the peace by his party, which office he held for many years. Himself, wife, and daughters Elizabeth, Emily and Priscilla, are members of the Baptist Church.