Notes:
Samuel F Cripe is a descendant of one of the oldest pioneers in Elkhart county, Indiana.
Emanuel Cripe, who is now living on Elkhart Prairie, where he followed farming during the greater part of the active years of his life. He is now in the eighty-sixth year, to which patriarchal age he has attained, without doubt, by correct living and by the possession of a sound constitution, inherited from his German ancestors.
He was born in Dayton, Ohio, October 7, 1806, and was a son of David Cripe, a prosperous old farmer of Pennsylvania, but in an early day removed from Somerset county to Ohio, where he carved out a home for himself in the woods of Montgomery county. His father, Jacob Cripe, came from Germany, and until his death was a resident of the Keystone State.
Daniel Cripe became a resident of the State of Indiana in the spring of 1829. His wife was Madeline Miller, by whom he became the father of the following children: Samuel, Benjamin, John, Daniel, Emanuel, Betsey, Susan, Kate and Polly, all of whom came to Indiana within a few years of each other, having married in Ohio.
Mr Cripe came to Indiana before the land had been opened for settlement, and the Indians were plentiful but peaceful. They often came to his house, especially in the watermelon season. He owned a good farm of 200 acres on Elkhart Prairie, and was the first Dunkard preacher in northern Indiana. He possessed many Christian virtues, led a simple and unostentatious life, and through his instrumentality many of the substantial, law-abiding and patriotic Dunkard families of that section came to the region. Throughout life he used the German language, and lived to he eighty-eight years of age. His brother Jacob lived to be ninety-nine years of age and also died in this county. Emanuel Cripe was born in Ohio in 1806, was reared on a farm, and after his marriage to Catherine, daughter of Joseph Miksell, he settled on land in Ohio, where their eldest child, Susan, was born. About 1830 he removed to Indiana, and there the remainder of his children were born, as follows: Samuel, Mary, Eli, Betsy, Nettie, Lydia, Rebecca and Noah.
Mr Cripe had driven a team through to this State in 1829 and entered land, which, by hard work and industry, he increased to 600 acres, besides three houses and lots in Goshen. Although his literary education was lacking, he was naturally an intelligent man, and it was owing to this and to his energy and thrift, that he acquired his property. He was a hard worker, retired at dark, rose at 4 o'clock in the morning and lost no time, for on rainy days his time was spent in spinning flax. Realizing the value of a good education, his children were given the advantages of the common schools, and when they started out in life for themselves he gave them a considerable amount of either land or money. In politics he has always been a Democrat.
Samuel F Cripe, his son, and the subject of this sketch, was born on the home farm, two miles from Goshen, July 27, 1832, and in that vicinity was reared to manhood and received some schooling. He was married to Elizabeth M--, daughter of Adam M--, a shoemaker, of Locke township, and to them one child was born. Susan, whose birth occurred September 29, 185-. Her mother died on the 8th of March, 1855, and on the 10th of June, 1857, Mr Cripe took for his second wife Eliza Stomotis, whose maiden name was Myers, a daughter of Adam Myers, a farmer of Stark county, Ohio. To this second union the following children were born: Amos, born August 5, 18--; Ella Nora, July 11, --: Jesse, October 28, --; Ishmael, July 4, 1862; Jefferson, October 31, 1864; Mary C, May 18, 1886. After the death of his second wife, on the 18th of July, 1874,
Mr Cripe married, December 9, 1874, Mary Berkey, born August 30, 1838, daughter of Eliza and Nancy (Miller) Berkey. He was a substantial farmer of Somerset county, Penn.
Mr and Mrs Cripe settled on a farm two miles southwest of Goshen, and lived there about fifteen years. By thrift he added to his farm until he was the owner of 300 acres of land, then moved three miles north of Middlebury, where his farm comprised 270 acres. This land he sold however, in 1891, with the exception of eighty acres. Since that time he has owned and conducted a saw-mill in Middlebury, besides forty-one acres of laud south of the town, and four lots and three residences in the town. He has been a member of the Dunkard Church for more than twenty years, and a deacon in the same for some fifteen years. He has been generous with his means in the support of this church, and has reared his children in that faith with the exception of Jefferson.
Mrs Mary Cripe was the mother of five children by her first husband (Mr Gardener): Anna Eliza, born August 25, 1849; Nancy J, born April 3, 1861; John F, born February 6, 1863; Eliza P, February 2, 1870, and Cora A, August 10, 1873.
Pictorial and Biographical Memoirs of Elkhart and St Joseph Counties, Indiana
Together with Biographies of Many Prominent Men of Northern Indiana and the Whole State, Both Living and Dead
Goodspeed Brothers Publishers
1893