Samuel Cupples

Samuel Cupples (September 13, 1831 – January 6, 1912) was an American businessman and entrepreneur based in St. Louis, Missouri.

Early life Cupples was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to James and Elizabeth (Bingham) Cupples. His parents were both from County Down, Ireland, and came to the United States in 1814. James Cupples was an educator and established a school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When he was 15, Samuel moved to Cincinnati and began working for Albert O. Taylor in a woodenware business.

Personal life Samuel Cupples married Margaret Amelia Kells on February 15, 1854, and had a child which died at birth. Margaret died of tuberculosis in 1859. Cupples then married her sister, reportedly on his first wife's wish, Martha Sophia Kells, in 1860. They had three daughters, all of whom died in childhood: Harriet Lillian (“Lillie”) Kells Cupples (born December 8, 1866, died 1874), Belle Marston Cupples (born October 28, 1869, died 1879), and Clara Taylor Cupples (born August 28, 1871, died 1874).

The loss of his own children caused Cupples to adopt Amelia Ross Lowman, daughter of his sister-in-law, Harriet Jane (Kells) Lowman (1828–1877), in 1871.

Cupples, his daughter, Amelia Lowman Scudder, and Amelia's daughters Martha, Gladys and Maude, set out for a Mediterranean voyage with planned destinations of Jerusalem and the great pyramids of Egypt aboard the British ocean liner RMS Republic on January 22, 1909, in New York City. The ship was in collision with a west-bound liner early the next morning in heavy fog, and sank. The Cupples family survived.