Samuel Graves Stewart, M. D., a prominent physician and surgeon of Topeka, was born in Oxford, Butler county, Ohio, Oct. 1, 1845, a son of Dr. Robert Stewart, a graduate of the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, who practiced medicine in Ohio, the greater part of the time at Xenia, for a period of over forty years, when his able professional services were ended by his death in 1890. He was a native of South Carolina but came to Ohio at an early age with his father, Samuel Stewart, a farmer by occupation, who was born in South Carolina, the son of William Stewart, a native of the north of Ireland and of Scottish descent. Dr. Robert Stewart married Miss Mary White, a native of Montgomery county, Ohio, and the daughter of Joseph White and his wife, whose family name was Miller. Joseph White was born in Kentucky and was of Scotch-Irish descent. Samuel G. Stewart spent the greater part of his boyhood and early school life in Greenfield and Xenia, Ohio. He was a student in the junior class of the Xenia High School when the Civil war broke out, and although a mere lad of fifteen years, he left his studies and his home to give his services to his country in her great struggle. He enlisted in the Seventy-fourth Ohio regiment, served the four years of the war and was mustered out at its close at the age of nineteen with a record of valiant and faithful service. He was with his regiment on all the battlefields on which it fought, taking part in twenty-eight engagements. At Murfreesboro, Tenn, he was seriously wounded and being unable to escape from the field after the battle, was made a prisoner by the Confederates. After six months of imprisonment in the famous Libby prison, he managed to make his escape and rejoined his regiment. At the close of the war he returned to his home and resumed his studies, spending two years in preparatory work in a seminary at Xenia. He then enrolled as a member of the senior class of Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, and graduated there in 1868.