Samuel Clinton Kirkpatrick was born in Pickaway County, Ohio on January 14, 1816, to James and Jane Porter Kirkpatrick. He was one of eight children born to this union.

His first marriage was to Anna Shobe in 1836, whose father gave Anna the farmland that the Kirkpatricks lived in until her death, around 1840. From family records it appears that Anna Shobe may have died around the same time as her child Ann, who is listed having died in 1841. On March 3, 1843, Samuel Clinton Kirkpatrick mortgaged his Ross County, Ohio, farmland to Tilghman Rittenhouse, who was married to Anna's sister, Susannah. On June 29, 1843, Rittenhouse and John H. Keith were appointed guardians for John Austin, and Serena Kirkpatrick, children of Samuel and Anna. We believe that Samuel may have entered the army about this time.

On January 5, 1845, Serena Kirkpatrick, age six died, and was buried alongside her mother and baby sister Ann who had died earlier in 1841. They are all resting in the Shobe-Mallow Cemetery in Ross County, Ohio. Records indicate that prior to 1920 the three graves of Anna and her two daughters were moved from the Shobe-Mallow Cemetery in Ross County, Ohio to section 7 of the Greenlawn Cemetery located in Frankfort, Ohio.

Samuel Clinton Kirkpatrick remarried after 1843 to Elizabeth Betty Bryant, the daughter of Benjamin Bryant and Susan Mallow, and from this union were six children: William Bryant, Allen Thurman, Marion Ellsworth, Dora Elizabeth, Florida Calhoun, and Samuel Clinton II.

About 1843, Samuel and Elizabeth Kirkpatrick relocated to Tippecanoe County, Indiana, and in 1868 relocated to Charity, Vermilion County, Illinois, where on May 6, 1889, at the age of 73 years, 3 months and 23 days, Samuel Clinton Kirkpatrick passed away. He is buried in Embury Cemetery near his old home North of Muncie, Illinois.

Elizabeth Bryant Kirkpatrick lived to be ninety-five years of age and is buried in Embury Cemetery with her husband just north of Muncie, Illinois.