Samuel G. McFarland was born on December 11, 1830, in
Smith Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania to William and Mary McFarland. He graduated from
Washington College in the class of 1857, and was ordained as a minister by the
Presbytery of Washington in 1860. He married his wife, Jane E. Hays, on May 3, 1860; she was a daughter (born 1824) of John Hays, of
Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. Samuel and Jane left for missionary work in Siam in 1860, setting sail on June 5 after a farewell meeting held in Raccoon Church. They established a mission in the town of Phetchaburi, and organized two churches and a school there. In 1879, at the invitation of King Chulalongkorn, he took charge of the Suan Anan School, which had been established as a government school for Siamese boys of the higher classes, and became superintendent of education for the Siamese government. When the school closed down in 1892, he was assigned to the Bureau of Compilation, and wrote textbooks in Thai for the developing government school system, covering subjects such as botany, geography, geology, and bookkeeping. In his missionary work, he translated four books of the
Pentateuch, a large portion of the minor prophets, the
Westminster Confession of Faith, treatise on the Christian Evidence, a synopsis of church history, and a book of sermons. Due to his deteriorating health, McFarland returned with his wife to the United States in 1896. He died in Canonsburg April 26, 1897. Jane lived in
Washington, D.C. with their daughter Mary until her death on June 9, 1908. ==Family==