Sacramento
County
Biographies
Fredrick Meyers
was born in Hanover, Germany, June 8, 1822, his parents being Henry and Sophia
(Klingenberg) Meyer, by American usage Myers or Meyers, the latter spelling
being preferred by this branch of the family.
The father died in 1847, aged fifty-two. Grandfather William Meyer reached the age of 103 and his wife was
nearly eighty. Frederick Meyers
received the usual common-school education of his country and was brought up to
farm work. In 1857 he came to
Cincinnati, Ohio, and there worked for two years in a starch factory, and
afterward in various pursuits for two years.
In 1859 Mr. Meyers was married in Cincinnati to Miss Katrina Verbarg,
also a native of Hanover, born October 21, 1840, daughter of Diedrich and
Margareta (Kattum) Verbarg. Her father
died in September, 1888, in his eightieth year; the mother, born in 1813, is
now living with another daughter, at North Vernon, Indiana. Mr. Meyers, who had been a soldier in his
native land from eighteenth to the twenty-eighth year of his age, serving
against Denmark in 1848, he entered the Union army in 1861, enlisting in the
Fourth Ohio Cavalry, and became a corporal, in Company F, his imperfect
knowledge of English alone preventing his further advancement. He served under General Mitchell, and was
discharged for wounds received in the service.
On his recovery, he worked in different lines for a few years, and in
1866, with his wife and two children, accompanied his brother, H. W. Meyers, on
his return to California. Arrived on
Grand Island, he bought seventy-two acres of his brother. The land was mostly in willows and tules
then, but he has now twenty acres in orchard, besides raising other marketable
products. He has a comfortable home,
and expects to become rich by the thorough reclamation of Grand Island. In August, 1883, he bought a fruit farm of
twenty acres on Schoolcraft Island, Solano County, now occupied by his
son. Mr. And Mrs. Meyers lost their
oldest child, Caroline, at the age of seventeen, and have two children living:
Henry Frederick, born in Ohio, December 19, 1865, and Anna Aurelia, born in
California, January 2, 1870. Miss
Meyers was educated in St. Gertrude’s Academy at Rio Vista, and besides the
usual acquirements has attained special proficiency in music. She is also an artist in crayon work of more
than ordinary ability, and has embellished her home with many fine pieces of
work from her own pencil, as well as with some artistic needlework.
Transcribed
by Karen Pratt.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of
Sacramento County, California. Page 500. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.
©
2005 Karen Pratt.