Excerpt from The Fisher Families of Truro, Stewiacke and Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia:

Deacon Samuel Fisher was born in the North of Ireland, of Scottish descent. His father was a weaver.

He came to America in 1740, aged 19. The ship in which he came was usually spoken of as the "Starved ship". The vessel was so scantily supplied with provisions that, long before the voyage was completed, one pint of oatmeal for each individual on board, and a proportionate allowance of water, was all that remained. Mr. Fisher once went to the mate with a tablespoon to obtain some water, which was refused him, there being but two-thirds of a bottleful on board. Mr. Fisher's customs was to take a spoonful of meal and having moistened it with salt water, to eat it raw. The passengers and crew, having subsisted in this manner for 14 days, were at length reduced to the necessity of eating the bodies of those who died. Even this resource failed them; and at length, Mr. Fisher was selected to give up his life to preserve the lives of the rest. Providentially, however, a vessel was in sight, and their signals of distress being observed, they obtained relief, and he was saved. So deep an impression did the horrors of that passage make

upon the mind of Mr. Fisher that, in the afterlife, he could never see, without pain, the least morsel of food wasted, or a pail of water thrown on the ground carelessly.

On his arrival in this country, he was bound by the Captain to a man in Roxbury for the payment of his passage. He came to Londonderry, NH, about one or two years later, and became a member of the family of Mr. Matthew Taylor, whose daughter Sarah he married when he was 25 years of age.

He was made a ruling elder in the church in this place during the ministry of the Rev. David McGregor and remained in this office until he was no longer able to perform its duties on account of his age. He was well instructed in the great principles of the gospel. He had a most happy faculty of improving the occurrences which took place about him for the religious instruction of his family.

Mr. Fisher was married three times, and had twelve children, eleven of whom arrived at adult age and ten of whom survived him. Ten of his children were married and most lived to an advanced age. The average age of 4 of them was 91 years. His descendants, in the year 1850, were nine hundred and fifteen, and are scattered through nearly all the States of the Union, through Nova Scotia and Canada. Some of them are ministers and some elders in the Church. It is estimated that three fourths of those over twenty years of age are professors of religion.

The following obituary was published in the Haverhill Museum (Haverhill, New Hampshire), April 29, 1806:

DIED—At Londonderry, (N.H.) on the 10th instant, Deacon SAMUEL FISHER, in the 84th year of his age. It is not more than simple truth to observe, that he possessed a strength of intellectual capacity, with a steadfast sincerity of heart, which do honor to his memory as a man and as a christian. Master of a pathetic perspicuity and solemnity of address, especially on interesting subjects, he commanded a respectful attention of those he conversed with, whether learned or illiterate. Far from engrossing the conversation, he was sociable, free, solid, orderly and edifying. From early life he was a fervent professor of religion, which was his favorite study; and soon became and continued to be an established character for reputation and usefulness, as a father in Israel and a ruling elder in the church of God. Much respected as a citizen, esteemed as a husband, honored as an instructing and exemplary father, diligent in business, patient in trouble, pious and punctual in devotional duties, he lived; with resignation to, and desires for death, he died; recommending Christ and religion to the living. He has left an aged consort bereaved of her companion, with 12 children, 76 grand-children, and 53 great-grand-children (total 141) from him descended, to remember and imitate his virtue. --The righteous hath hope in his death.