Lake County IN Archives Biographies.....Meyer, LeGrand T. 1867 - ************************************************ 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 January 1, 2007, 9:09 pm Author: T. H. Ball (1904) LEGRAND T. MEYER. LeGrand T. Meyer, who has been a leading attorney at law in Hammond for over ten years, is a life-long resident of Lake county, and has worked out his successful career almost within call of his first home. He has been a member of the bar of the county for the past fifteen years, but did not at once engage in active practice, continuing his legal and literary studies until his graduation in 1892. He has for several years been prominent in the business as well as professional activity of the city, and is to be counted among the truly representative and public-spirited citizenship of Hammond. Mr. Meyer was born in Crown Point, Indiana, November 22, 1867. His father, John H. Meyer, was born in Hanover, Germany, son of a lifelong resident of that province. He was reared in Germany, and in 1855 emigrated to America. He lived in Brunswick, Indiana, until his enlistment, in 1861, in Company B, Twentieth Indiana Infantry, with which he served three and a half years as a private. He was wounded at the second day of Gettysburg, and sent to the hospital, but afterward rejoined his regiment. He was also in the second battle of Bull Run, at Chancellorsville, and throughout the hard Wilderness campaign. After the war he conducted a general store at Crown Point for a number of years, and then retired to his farm at Cedar Lake. John H. Meyer, the father, died on September 20, 1904, after a few days' illness from pneumonia, and on September 23, 1904, was buried in the family lot in Crown Point by a large gathering of his old comrades and neighbors. In politics he was an uncompromising Democrat, and his wife is a member of the Methodist church. He married Margaret E. Dittmer, who was born in Savannah, Georgia, a daughter of William Henry and Sarah Elizabeth (Carr) Dittmer. Her father came from Germany and settled at Savannah before the Civil war. He owned considerable real estate there, was a prosperous merchant, and erected grist mills in various localities. In 1857 he came to Lake county, Indiana, and bought a farm at Cedar Lake, but afterward returned to Savannah, where he died at the age of sixty-six. Mr. and Mrs. John H. Meyer had three children: LeGrand T., Howard C. and Horace G. Mr. L. T. Meyer lived in Crown Point the first eleven years of his life, and received his first schooling there. He lived on the home farm at Cedar Lake for some years, and studied law and continued his literary training in his home county. He was admitted to the bar in 1889, and in 1892 graduated from the literary department of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he had also taken a law course. He opened his office in Hammond in 1892, and has built up a very satisfactory practice in the intervening years. He is vice president and one of the directors of the Champion Potato Machinery Company, which manufactures potato planters and diggers. He gives his political allegiance to the Democratic party. His wife is a member of the Baptist church. He resides at 47 Doty street, where he built his home in 1896. Mr. Meyer was elected city attorney of Hammond, on June 21, 1904. He has always taken an active part in politics, having several times been chairman of the Democratic city central committee, and has invariably been successful. In 1893 Governor Claude Matthews appointed him chief of the engineer corps of the Indiana National Guard, with rank of colonel, and during the tempestuous time of Roby pugilism and railway riots he was in service as the confidential adviser of the governor. Previously to this Mr. Meyer had always been active in military affairs, having commanded a company of Sons of Veterans infantry, and had been an active Son of Veteran of the State, holding many state offices therein. May 22, 1895, Mr. Meyer married Miss Sarah L. Jennings, the daughter of William and Adelaide (Miller) Jennings. They have three children, Helen Margaret, Laura M., and LeGrand T., Jr. Through the maternal side Mr. Meyer traces his direct ancestry to the William Carrs of South Carolina, who took an active part in the Revolutionary war of American Independence. 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/meyer634gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/infiles/ File size: 5.1 Kb