• In 1803, at the age of 19, Ward went to Syracuse and engaged in shipping army supplies on Lake Ontario. In 1821 Ward persuaded the Gallaghers to come to Michigan.1500, p 1

• An early settler of Manlius, New York.1634, p 1026

• 1818 shipbuilding was begun by [unclear] Keyes and Capt. Samuel Ward.1647

• Captain Sam Ward began his career of shipbuilding for the lake by launching at Conneaut in 1818 a twenty-seven-ton schooner, the Salem. He later moved on to the mouth of Belle River, above Detroit, turned out ships from his yards there, and was at one time owner of the largest fleet sailing on Lake Erie.1648, p 177

• He also adopted a girl, Jane E. Ward, who married David Gallagher.1623, p 2

• The following spring my [Eber Ward] brother Samuel was going to Michigan, so I made him the best arrangement in my power for my children to remain at Conneaut, and came to Newport on St. Clair river with my brother and his family, early in May, 1819.
My brother Samuel was worth about $3,000 when he moved to Newport, quite a large fortune for those days.
At that time there were at Newport, William Gallagher, James B. Wolverton, Bela Knapp, Samuel Ward, and myself and our families.
In 1823 my brother Sam, and William Gallagher built a sawmill and grist-mill, the first mills in that section of country.1649, pp 471-2

• Here is some dope about our ancestors, Sam Ward and William Gallagher. These men lived in New York State previous to 1820, and they married sisters named Lamerson. In 1821 Sam Ward came and located in Newport, which is now Marine City. He sent word back to Gallagher to come with the women. So they all settled in Newport in 1821.281

• Capt. Samuel Ward came to the mouth of Belle River in 1820, and laid out the village of Newport (now Marine City) in 1831. This was the second village on the St. Clair. Although it did not grow much for several years, it has recently come to be quite a town, and is noted for its ship-building. More steamboats and sail vessels have been built in these ship-yards than anywhere else in the State.
Why the remarkable success of so heavy business men at Newport or Marine City? I think it originated mainly from old Capt. Samuel Ward. He was scrupulously honest, frugal and industrious, and he spared no patience to impress the importance of these things upon everybody around him. He seemed to magnetize everybody with his spirit, and inculcate them with an insatiable desire to make money. When I first knew him, he was a man of very moderate means, and dept a tavern at Belle River, on one of the old French farms which he had bought, and on which he had laid out his village. When he died he was a millionaire.283, p 255

• Samuel Ward located eighty acres in Section 2 in 1833.283, p 687

• About the year 1819, I think, Capt. Samuel Ward came to the township. He built a house of round logs where Dr. Haddin’s house now stands. It was, indeed, a primitive structure, contained but one partition, and was covered with oak shake. His family at that time consisted of his wife and son Harrison. Soon after Capt. Ward was settled, a brother-in-law by the name of Gallagher came, he being the father of David and John Gallagher.
Capt. Sam was the king of this community, arbitrator of all disputes, and so long as he could control, business was quite decent; but he could not, nor would he allow any one else to raise above dependency upon himself if he could help it; yet, notwithstanding this, he was socially very agreeable, and always made friends of those he wished to defeat.283, p 689

• My Uncle Samuel, being ungovernable, would not attend school, but ran away from home to Lake Ontario at seventeen or eighteen years of age, and never fully learned to read or write, but in his business life learned to sign his name in his way, being devoid of all literary attainments. My Uncle Samuel left Lake Ontario before the close of the war of 1812, residing at Salina, N. Y., and boiled salt there for a while. He married there “Aunt Betsey,” and afterwards moved to Northern Ohio at or near Conneaut, and finally moved to Michigan and settled at Newport (now Marine City) on the St. Clair River. He engaged there in farming, small merchandising, building and navigating small sail craft on the Lakes, and eventually in building, owning and navigating first-class passenger steamers, and buying much pine land from the United States. He died at Marine City at nearly seventy years of age, and willed nearly all of this property of about one million dollars to a son of Uncle Eber’s, named Eber B. Ward, who was my cousin.1645,1643, p 1 & p 2

• At the time of our arrival at Newport, Uncle Sam was worth from sixty to eighty thousand dollars, a fortune comparatively in financial power and consequence much more than that of a millionaire of to-day. He owned two good schooners, the General Harrison and the Marshall Ney, considerable stock in the large steamboat Michigan, was running a store of general assortment, and had a large, well-cleared up and well-located stock and grain farm located between the St. Clair and Belle Rivers, the village of Newport being laid out on the South end of the same. He had lately made a sale to an Ohio company of another portion of his large farm for fifteen thousand dollars, and soon built a brick house at a cost of eight thousand dollars, and had other property and lands, and was out of debt. His family consisted of his wife “Aunt Betsey,” who could neither read or write, and his son Harrison, “Hack” as he was called, then about twenty-one years of age, ............, and four of Aunt Betsey’s orphan nieces named McQueen, at this time from ten to twenty-one years of age.1643, p 17

• Uncle Sam died in the winter of 1854, willing about all his estate to E. B. Ward, only leaving to his wife, Aunt Betsey, and his son “Hack” a small life-lease interest. Aunt Betsey and Hack lived but a few years after Uncle Sam’s death, unnoticed by the neighbors and neglected by E. B. Ward.1643, p 44

• His will dated March 21, 1854 [sic] is on file in St. Clair County. He names wife, Elizabeth; son, Jacob Harrison Ward; nephews, John and David Gallagher; brother, Eber Ward; adopted daughter, Jane Ward; Eber Ward, son of Zael Ward; nephew, Eber B. Ward, and others not mentioned as relatives. He lived in Newport [now Marine City], St. Clair Co., Michigan.1623, p 2

• 1790 Census: Wells, Rutland, Vermont1650
• 1800 Census: Wells, Rutland, Vermont.1651
• 1830 Census: St. Clair, St. Clair, Michigan. Age 40-50. 0011411/01110011604
• 1850 Census: Cottrellville, St. Clair, Michigan. Age 66, b VT. Steam Boat Builder. $10000. Living next to David Gallagher.1617