Fountain County IN Archives Biographies.....Meeker, Usual H. 1811 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com September 26, 2007, 11:12 pm

Author: H. W. Beckwith (1881)

   Usual H. Meeker, retired farmer and stock raiser, Rob Roy, was born in
Tompkins county, New York, October 12, 1811. All he knows of his ancestral
history is that two brothers named Meeker emigrated from England and settled in
New Jersey anterior to the revolution. His father, Mannon Meeker, died when he
was five years old, and his mother, whose maiden name was Hannah Thompson,
removed with her family to Ohio. They were very poor, and at the age of eleven
Mr. Meeker began toiling to support himself and his mother. For the first six
months' labor he received the trifling sum of $8; and the following winter he
worked for Peter Voorhees, grandfather of Daniel Voorhees, for twelve and a half
cents a day, receiving his pay regularly every night. Next season he was
employed by Mr. Voorhees at $3 per month. At length he was able to earn $4 per
month, and eventually his wages were increased to $5. Before he was eighteen he
had saved $115; he now quit working by the month, and bought some oxen and went
to cutting and hauling wood. He accumulated money rapidly; in six months his
rising fortune had reached $215; but not-withstanding he was a yonng man of
great strength and powerful constitution, he had so overtaxed and exhausted
himself by excessive labor day and night that nature gave way under such a
strain, and it was six months before he did any more work. He had to pay board.
His oxen got scattered; he had lost long and precious months. When he began work
again he found himself, as he expresses it, "nearly ruined." But it was not long
till he bought eighty acres of land in Van Buren township without having seen
it. He paid $215 for it. On November 27, 1831, he married Sallie Dudley. Next
year he came on horseback to see his land; it was hilly and rough, and did not
please him; but in the winter of 1835-6 he brought his family to Fountain
county. Next August he swopped his land with Moses Dudley for 160 acres in
Rich-land township, where Daniel Carpenter lives, and agreed to pay $500 to
boot. He had planted himself in the woods as poor as the most impecunious
pioneer, and with a $5 and a $25 horse and a $20 wagon he began the hard
struggle which he had voluntarily accepted. Next year he bought eighty acres of
timber from Daniel Dyle, for $600 on credit. People were astonished at his
apparently rash operations, and predictions that he would break up were freely
volunteered. He did not break up, although he had to clear his land and pay for
it from the products raised upon it. He brought 150 acres into cultivation. He
sold this farm, and in 1856 he bought another, of 280 acres, in Shawnee
township, from George May, paying $5,000 down and obtaining credit for $9,000,
the last payment to be made in three years. The gloomy prophecies were renewed,
and Mr. Meeker was once more the butt of pitying observations. But he paid the
last installment four months before it was due. He combined extensive stock
raising with his farming; he labored at all seasons with tireless industry: he
studied and practiced careful, if not rigid economy; he did not shrink from
frequent risks, it must be confessed, and always declined to give bail on his
notes of hand (often large ones), but never allowed one to mature without prompt
payment. His success was uniform and his progress rapid. In 1858 he bought
eighty acres from Abram Overly for $1,600; in 1859 a farm of 252 acres on
Osborne's prairie, in Van Buren township, from Absalom Jenkins, for $8,000; in
1864, 400 acres in the same township from Charles Stewart and William Sewell,
for $13,200; and 80 acres from Daniel Strader, for $2,000; in 1866, 68 acres
from Enos Myers, for $3,700; a year or two later, 280 acres in Richland
township, from the Woods heirs (Jonathan Swigert and H. Slusser), for $8,000;
and 15 acres of woodland from William Kirkland, for $1,125; in 1869,169 acres in
Shawnee township from Ferdinand Bookwalter, for $12,675. In 1875 he quit his
farm and removed to Veedersburg, where he bought $1,600 worth of town property,
and invested $2,000 in a grocery store. After eighteen months he sold out and
went back to Shawnee township and built himself a neat country residence. In
1878 he purchased 200 acres adjoining his old homestead from William and Daniel
Briney, for $12,000; in 1880, 133 acres in the same neighborhood from Francis
Bookwalter, for $5,000; 80 acres for $7,500; and the dower of 60 acres belonging
to his son Jacob's widow, for $3,000. Much more land has he bought, but this is
that which he now owns, except 80 acres in Missouri, and for which he owes not a
dollar, including some 800 acres he has given his children. Mr. Meeker has by no
means exhausted his ability to buy more farms. He has been a money lender for
twenty years. Mrs. Meeker was born in the State of Maine, August 8, 1811, and
her parents removed to Butler county, Ohio, in 1815. She has borne seven
children: Sarah, John, Joanna, Jacob, James, Maria, and Theodore. John and Jacob
were soldiers in the late war. The former was in the 72d Ind. Vols.; he served
six or seven months, and was discharged for disability. The latter was in the
154th Ind., and after several months was discharged for a like cause. His
service shortened his life, and he died in 1876. Mr. and Mrs. Meeker both belong
to the Christian church. He cast his first ballot for Henry Clay in 1832, and
from that time followed the fortunes of the whig party. He is now a republican.

Additional Comments:
Shawnee Township

HISTORY OF FOUNTAIN COUNTY,

TOGETHER WITH
HISTORIC NOTES ON THE WABASH VALLEY,

GLEANED FROM EARLY AUTHORS, OLD MAPS AND MANUSCRIPTS
PRIVATE AND OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE, AND OTHER AUTHENTIC, THOUGH, FOR THE MOST
PART, OUT-OF-THE-WAY SOURCES.

BY H. W. BECKWITH,
OF THE DANVILLE BAR; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETIES OF
WISCONSIN AND CHICAGO.

WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

CHICAGO: H. H. HILL AND N. IDDINGS, PUBLISHERS.
1881.


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