Samuel Straughan was born on a Virginia farm in 1783. His formal education was minimal, but the Lord blessed his mind nonetheless. He loved church and was fond of reading sermons and religious journals, earning, as a child, the nickname, “the preacher.” Somewhat strangely, it wasn’t until Samuel was twenty-one that he was converted to Christ. He was baptized in 1803, and on this day in 1806 he was ordained to the gospel ministry. On that same day he received a unanimous call to the small Wicomico Baptist Church. Under Pastor Straughan’s ministry the church quickly grew to more than three hundred members. In 1804 he was called to the pastor the Morattico Baptist Church, which he served while still pastoring in Wicomico. Then ten years later he asked permission of his two churches to begin preaching tours of Maryland, making him a very busy man.
His preaching was characterized by an abundance of scripture. He committed large portions of the Bible to memory, and it was not unusual for him to accurately quote a hundred scriptures in a single sermon. Despite his limited education, he was a man who was “mighty in the Scriptures.”
Perhaps his work load contributed to his condition, but Pastor Straughan eventually suffered from some sort of pulmonary disease, and from that he died in his thirty-eighth year on June 9, 1821.