Samuel Taylor Suit

Who was Samuel Taylor Suit?

Samuel Taylor Suit was a Maryland politician and landowner. Suit was born in Bladensburg, Maryland, the son of innkeeper Fielder Suit. At age 14 he left home and traveled first to Keokuk, Iowa, and then to Louisville, Kentucky. In Kentucky Suit became involved in distilling whiskey, eventually owning a distillery and making his fortune. During this time he became an honorary Kentucky colonel and was known as Colonel Suit from that time onward. While in Kentucky he married his first wife, Sarah Ebenezer Williams, who died in childbirth at age 19.

In August 1862 Suit donated a set of regimental flags to the Chicago Board of Trade, which were presented to what became the First Board of Trade Regiment, or 72nd Illinois Infantry. The flags were labeled "Presented by S T Suit, of Louisville KY, to the First Board of Trade Regiment", and were carried by the regiment through the war, it is believed they were burned in the Chicago Fire. Suit left Louisville and moved to New York City, where he obtained a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. In New York he met Aurelia Wilmarth, daughter of Home Life Insurance Company of New York president Arthur Wilmarth, and they were married in 1859.