Samuel Roskelley was born to Thomas and Ann Kitt Roskelley in Davenport, Devonshire, England, on January 1, 1837. Raised Baptist, he converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1851 and emigrated to Utah in 1853 with the Appleton Harmon company. After being called back to England in 1856 for a two-year Church mission, Roskelley returned to Utah and married Rebecca Hendricks on July 22, 1858. In 1860, he settled in Richmond, Utah, but Church leadership soon asked him to make the short move south to Smithfield, where he served as a Church bishop from 1862 to 1880. There he held a number of other important positions in the community, including superintendent of common schools for Cache County, mayor of Smithfield, and captain of the Cache Valley Militia. During this period, Roskelley also married a second wife, Mary Roberts, in 1865. He ultimately took on four additional wives over the course of his lifetime: Mary Florence Kelsey, Mary Jane Rigby, Margaret Rigby, and Sarah Maud Burton.

In 1880, Roskelley departed on a second mission to England, and shortly after his return in 1881, he was appointed president of the high priest quorum of the Cache Valley Stake on August 6, 1882. He assisted in the construction of the Logan Temple, for which he was later named recorder on May 2, 1884. Samuel Roskelley passed away on February 10, 1914, in Smithfield, Utah.