Samuel Barnard was born on July 30, 1839, in Montgomery County, Ohio. His family moved to McLean County, Illinois, around 1841, and he grew up and attended school near Bloomington, Illinois. He married a woman named Anna in the late 1850s, and they had at least two children: Clarence, born around 1859; and Clyde, born around 1862. By the early 1860s, he was working as a farmer in Dry Grove, Illinois, and he owned $200 of real estate and $500 of personal property.
He enlisted in the Union army on August 7, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company I of the 94th Illinois Infantry on August 20. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 9 inches tall, with sandy hair and blue eyes. He eventually earned a promotion to corporal. The regiment took part in the siege of Vicksburg, and he was discharged for disability on June 1, 1864.
Barnard settled in Fairbury, Illinois, after leaving the army. By 1870, he owned $1,200 of real estate and $200 of personal property. They moved to Table Rock, Nebraska, in the 1870s, and he worked as a “nurseryman” there. According to one local writer, he was a “prominent member of the state board of agriculture” and “one of the oldest officers of the state horticultural society.” He was “stricken suddenly and fatally with heart disease” on board a train near Table Rock on January 16, 1890.