Early Life and Family of Samuel J. Reader The story of Samuel J. Reader begins in the settlement of Greenfield, Pennsylvania, where he was born on January 25, 1836. His early years were shaped by the quiet labors of his father, Francis Reader, a man who worked as a carpenter. Tragedy arrived almost as soon as he entered the world, for his mother, Catherine, passed away on May 19, 1836, only months after his birth. This loss meant that the boy's earliest memories were not of a mother's embrace, but of the steady, protective presence of his maternal grandparents and an aunt named Eliza James,…