An Irish born father and mother had multiple children in the far northeastern portions of Ireland in the early 1700s. Samuel was born sometime around 1725 near Randallstown, Antrim County. Like many in this time-frame, Scotch-Irish settlers took sailing clippers towards the Americas and became to settle a new land on the frontier. He had the same idea along with many tens of thousands of his countrymen. The exodus from northern Ireland was due to economic pressures and religious discrimination against the Presbyterians. Samuel sailed from Ireland to Philadelphia, and then traveled to Lancaster. Once in Lancaster, they found unsettled and available lands in the Cumberland Valley. They moved westward into York County, which is now Adams and York County.
Upon moving westward, he married his lovely wife, Isabella Ramsey, who was also of Irish origin, and married in Gettysburg in 1750. Prior to their married, they arrived around the Marsh Creek settlement and staked the initial claim. Samuel had made improvements on the land, mainly clearing and building structures around Rock Creek and Middle Creek. After they got married, their family expanded with multiple sons and daughters.
Land acquisitions began with applications from Pennsylvania Land Office. In doing so, Samuel Gettys would start to apply for land surrounding the two creeks. Between 1763 and 1765, Gettys would be granted two tracts of land totally 500 acres near the creeks. He secured around 380 acres of land surrounding his tavern at the intersections of Shippensburg-Baltimore roads that was completed in 1769.
However this is when difficulties came from the investments of the land. He gave funds to the cause that was fighting during the American Revolution around 1776. Around this time, his son, James, would be growing up. By the time Samuel Gettys was getting into his middle 60s, he was getting older and wanted his son to acquire the land. In 1785, his son repurchased the land during a sheriff’s sale that totaled around 116 acres.
Luckily he sold the acres to his son, James Gettys. Only a few years later, Samuel Gettys would pass away in 1790. He and his wife are not buried in the Evergreen Cemetery. They are buried out of town along Belmont Road within the Blacks Graveyard.