Samuel H. Hempstead (1814-1862) was a son of Joseph and Celinda Hutchinson Hempstead and was a nephew of William Hempstead, a St. Louis, Mo., merchant. Hempstead was born in New London, Conn., and moved to St. Louis, Mo. with his father in 1828. In 1830 Samuel and his brother Stephen Hempstead (1812-1883) went to Galena, Ill., where their uncle Charles S. Hempstead was a lawyer, and they clerked in a general store there. Both boys were for a time students at Illinois College at Jacksonville. Stephen fought in the Black Hawk War, settled at Dubuque, Iowa, in 1836, and was governor of Iowa, 1850-1854.
Samuel H. Hempstead studied law under Edward Bates; moved to Little Rock, Ark., in 1836; was clerk of the Arkansas House of Representatives, 1836-1838; adjutant general of militia under Governor Yell; prosecuting attorney, 1842; United States district attorney, 1856; solicitor general of Arkansas, 1858; and was sometime special judge of the state supreme court. He wrote the Reports of Cases argued in Arkansas Territorial and State Federal Courts 1820-1836 (1856), compiled swampland laws, and was prominent in real estate bank cases. He married Elizabeth A. Beall in 1841.
From the guide to the Samuel H. Hempstead Letters, ., 1836-1837, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)
