Lake-White-Carroll County IN Archives Biographies.....Meeker, Nathan B. 1850 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/in/infiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 17, 2006, 7:36 pm Author: T. H. Ball (1904) NATHAN B. MEEKER, Nathan B. Meeker, who has been a well-known and prosperous farmer of Center township on the old Meeker homestead for over a quarter of a century, is a member of an influential and long established family of Lake county, his brothers, J. Frank and Charles H., being worthy and successful representatives of the professional and business life of the county as he himself is of the agricultural interests. He has devoted his best efforts and endeavors to farming since arriving at years of manhood, and these thirty odd years have been prosperous from a material and individual standpoint and of eminent usefulness to the social and industrial development and progress of the community in general. Mr. Meeker was born in Wyoming county, Pennsylvania, November 4, 1850, being the eldest son of Sherman B. and Elizabeth (Gress) Meeker, whose history is further detailed in the sketches of their above mentioned sons, to be found on other pages of this work. Mr. Meeker, when four years old, was brought from his native place to Illinois, about a year later to Calhoun county, Michigan, at the age of nine to White county, Indiana, and thence to Carroll county, and in 1865 to Lake county, where his home has been ever since. He was educated in the public schools of the last three mentioned counties, and was reared to farm life and remained at home assisting his parents until his marriage in 1873. Mr. Meeker married, April 29, 1873, Miss Isadore Craft, and they have one son, Thomas C., who is studying in the pharmacy department of the Northern Indiana Normal at Valparaiso. Mrs. Meeker was born in Ohio, April 23, 1851, and came with her parents, Thomas and Lucinda (Forsha) Craft, to Lake county when she was about two years old, and she was reared and educated at Orchard Grove, Cedar Creek township. There were twelve children in the Craft family, seven sons and five daughters, and there are seven now living: Morgan; who is married and is engaged in the furniture and undertaking business in Monon, White county, this state; Cassander, who is married and is a farmer at Momence, Kankakee county, Illinois; Mrs. Meeker; James, a farmer of Lake county; Jennie, who was a Lake county teacher and is now the wife of George Norton, a farmer of Lake county; Adelbert, who is married and is farming at Lowell; and Elza, a farmer in this county. Mr. and Mrs. Meeker began their married life as renters in Kankakee county. Illinois. They located in Center township in 1878, on the homestead farm of one hundred and sixty acres, where they have resided ever since and conducted a farming and stock-raising business. They are citizens of high standing socially and personally, and are held in high esteem throughout their home township. Mr. Meeker has been a life-long Republican and first voted for General Grant. He and his wife are members of the Grange, and he has fraternal affiliations with the Knights of the Maccabees at Crown Point. Mrs. Meeker's parents are both deceased, and the following paragraphs, taken from the local press, give the details of their useful and well-spent lives and add to the completeness of this biography: "Thomas Craft, the subject of this week's half-tone illustration, is now a resident of Lowell, where he moved a short time ago to spend his remaining years. "He was born in Pennsylvania on July 24, 1826. At the age of five years he moved with his parents to Ohio, in which state he received his early education in a day when school facilities were not of the best and school hours few and far between. On arriving at manhood he first started to work for his father at one hundred dollars per year, but at the end of the first year found that this was earning money too slow, so he cleared about four acres of timber land and started into the cultivation of tobacco and made considerable money in raising and handling this product. "He was married November 30, 1848, to Lucinda Forsha, with whom he lived happily for forty years, when death claimed her in 1888. In 1854 he moved with his family to Orchard Grove, where he first purchased one hundred and fifty acres of land, to which he added other purchases from time to time until at last his total holdings were over four hundred acres of well improved real estate. "He has eight children, all of whom with the exception of one are married and living upon farms, with the exception of the oldest son, Morgan, who is in business at Monon, Indiana. "He was married again in 1894. "He has recently sold his entire farm to James Black, of Momence, for sixty dollars per acre, the tract bringing him twenty-four thousand dollars, and a public sale of his personal property netted him two thousand dollars, thus leaving him sufficient means to provide for his welfare in his old age and enable him to live in peace and comfort." "Passed Away—Mrs. Lucinda (Forsha) Craft was born in Marietta, Monroe county, Ohio, January 16, 1830. Died at her residence in Orchard Grove, Indiana, January 31, 1888, aged fifty-eight years and sixteen days. She was married to Thomas Craft, November 30, 1848, in Fredericktown, Ohio. In the fall of 1854 she with her husband moved to Lake county, Indiana, where she lived till her death, then crossing the bright river. She was the mother of twelve children, three in their heavenly home, nine on earth. She lived happily forty years with her husband. January 25 she was taken very ill, and after six days of intense suffering, she gave up life on earth for a brighter home above. She has passed away and left us with nothing but a pleasant memory. A break has been made in our hearts by that casket, open grave and silent mound, which can never be healed. "Dearest mother, thou hast left us, And gone to that better land; Would that you could have remained with us But the voice of God you heard. "Oh! mother, thou hast left us, To join that heavenly band, Nevermore to return to your loved ones— Left us here, on this desolate plain." Additional Comments: Extracted from: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Genealogy and Biography OF LAKE COUNTY, INDIANA, WITH A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY 1834—1904 A Record of the Achievements of Its People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation. REV. T. H. BALL OF CROWN POINT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ILLUSTRATED CHICAGO NEW YORK THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 1904 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/lake/bios/meeker469gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/infiles/ File size: 7.0 Kb