San Joaquin County
Biographies
JACOB MEYER
JACOB MEYER, a rancher of Dent Township, was born in Switzerland, August 13, 1832, a son of Jacob and _____ (Meyer)
Meyer. The mother died at about fifty years of age, but the father reached the
age of seventy-five, dying in 1858. The subject of this sketch worked on his
father’s farm in his youth. In 1859 he came to the United States by way of Havre,
France. Arriving in New York he proceeded at once to Seneca
County, Ohio,
where he hired out as a farm hand, near Attica.
In 1861 he enlisted in the Fifty-fifth Ohio, John C. Lee, Colonel, and served
to the close of the war--being honorably discharged July 11, 1865, at Louisville, Kentucky; is in receipt of a small pension since 1886. On his
return from the war he resumed farm labor in Seneca County, Ohio.
Mr. Meyer was married in Tiffin,
Ohio, on January 19, 1867, to Miss Catherine Schneider,
born in Bavaria, February 21, 1837, daughter of Peter and Anna (Felz)
Schneider. They had emigrated to America in 1857 with three daughters, another daughter having
preceded them in 1853. They settled near Tiffin,
Ohio, and the father worked at his trade of shoemaker. He
died in 1882 aged seventy-two.
Jacob Meyer, the subject of this sketch,
next rented a farm in Ohio for three years and in the spring of 1871 came to California by railroad. Before the close of the year he
purchased the ranch he still owns on the Stanislaus, containing 257 acres,
about fifty of which are bottom land, subject to overflow. The upland is good
wheat land and the bottom is adapted to alfalfa and fruit-raising; and he
cultivated them accordingly for wheat and hay, with a little fruit, chiefly for
home use. He also owns a soldier’s homestead of 160 acres in Merced County. Mr. and Mrs. Meyer have five children, namely: Frederick, born December 29, 1867; George, March 20, 1869; Ann Elizabeth,
February 7, 1871; all born in Ohio; Jacob Peter, born August 8, 1873; and Clara Ellen,
November 28, 1879, both born in California. Mr. Meyer belonged to the Grand Army of the
Republic, but, finding it too inconvenient to attend meetings, he withdrew in
1888.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 347-348. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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