KyGenWeb; Kentucky Biographies; MEEK, Zephaniah

Kentucky: A History of the State, Battle, Perrin, & Kniffin, ed. 8-B,
Boyd County

Rev. Zephaniah MEEK, the second son of Isaac and Sallie (Ward) MEEK, was
born in Floyd County, Ky., March 4, 1833.  His grandparents came from the
eastern part of Virginia soon after the advent of Daniel Boone; for a long
time lived in block-houses, and the male progenitors were famous Indian
fighters, the Wards having taken part in the last battle of the Big Sandy.
Isaac MEEK was born in 1810, was a farmer, and died in 1878.  Zephaniah MEEK
was educated in the common and select schools and at the age of fourteen
engaged in teaching.  Later he became a clerk in a store, and then for six
years was acting clerk of the county and circuit courts; next he was
commissioner of education for six years, when he was appointed to a
chaplaincy in the Confederate army, which offer he declined, although a
sympathizer with the South.  He had entered the ministry in 1856 as a local
preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church South; settled in Catlettsburg in
1866, where he was soon after appointed commissioner of education for Boyd
County.  He organized the Central Methodist in April, 1867, as a campaign
paper, but, the church having no organ in that section at that time, it was
continued permanently.  The paper was devoted to the interests of the M.E.
Church South, and has now a very large circulation, chiefly in Kentucky and
West Virginia.  In 1878 Mr. MEEK joined the Western Virginia Conference, and
in the fall of 1883 began mission work, now having charge of Eden Church,
Martin County.  November 23, 1853, Mr. MEEK married Miss Mary Jane Davis, of
Johnson County, and is now the father of eight children.  He is a Royal Arch
Mason.  The title Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him by the Kentucky
Military Institute in 1885.  He was the leading member from his Conference
of the last General Conference of his church, which convened in Richmond,
Va., May 1886.

MEEK Ward Davis

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