He married Macyke Hendrickse in 1646 at Gelderland or at Meppelen, Dreuth, Holland.
Their children, all born at Gelderland as Van Metern, were:
"Jan, his wife and five children arrived in the ship Fox at New Netherland on 12 April 1662. He came from Thielerwardt, a fortified town in Gelderland, Holland, and his wife from Meppelen, Province of Drenth, where they were married and where their children were born. The family name was derived from Meteren, a town in Holland.
"Upon the death of Joost Adrienceson of 'Boswick', Long Island, about 1685, Jan Joosten Van Meteren was appointed administrator, tutor of decedent's children and arbitrator in proceedings regarding the sale of some land in Hurley, which had been sold to Derick Schepmoes by Adrience during his lifetime.
"Jan Joosten Van Meteren, with his family, settled at Wiltwyck during the summer of 1662, but he is not noted in the activities of the community until 7 June 1663 when the Indians raided the settlement and carried off women and children into captivity. Among the prisoners were Jan's wife and two of his children, Joost Janse being one of them. He is not named in Captain Krieger's journal of the rescue expedition, but it is elsewhere stated that due to his three months' association with the Indians at the time of his captivity, Joost Janse had knowledge of their habits, trails, plans and war feuds with other tribes, and was so impressed with a desire for their adventurous life.
"Jan Joosten's name appears on the list of inhabitants who subscribed to the Oath of Allegiance, due to a change in the sovereignty of the country, between the 21st and 26th of October 1664. After this date frequent notices of him occur upon the records of Kingston, as a farmer, and as a man of growing importance in civil and religious matters.
"Joost Janse was elected an Elder of the Church in 1667. During the trouble in Wiltwyck during that year, caused by the offensiveness of the soldiers of the English garrison, he with three other citizens acted as mediators in the dispute and were able to conciliate the inhabitants, thus preventing violence to lives and property.
"The first instance of his purchase of land appears in a record which reads 'Jan Joosten had from Governor Lovelace a deed for a lot, dated 20 March 1671, in Marbletown' and 'on 11 October 1671 received confirmation of his 30 acre lot in Marbletown.'
"He was selected on 6 January 1673 as one of the four magistrates of Hurley and Marbletown to supervise the merging of the village of Nieuw Dorp into those of Hurley and Marbletown under the English rule. The other magistrates were: Jan Broerson, Louis DuBois, and Roelof Hendrickson. Notwithstanding the change of government Jan was continued in that civil office until the return of Dutch supremacy in 1675, when Governor Colve reappointed him to serve for another term.
"He was named Justice of Peace for Esopus, and was present at the Court of Assizes in New York from 4 to 6 October 1682.
"Maeyken, wife of Jan Joosten, was named as a beneficiary in the Will of Evardt Pary dated 26 March 1675 [Ulster Co. Probate Records].
"Jan Joosten Van Meteren obtained land grants in the Province of East Jersey through a period extending from 1689 to the year of his death, 1706 2E In company with his son-in-law, Jan Hamel, who had married his daughter Geertje Crom in 1682, Jan Joosten appeared in East Jersey where they jointly bought on 18 October 1695 from Edward Hunlocke, the deputy Governor, of Wingerworth, Burlington County, a plantation of 500 acres, located at Lassa (or Lazy) Point on the Delaware River. Lassa Point was about 23 miles northeast of Philadelphia.
"Jan Joosten next appears as an individual purchaser of certain lands in Somerset County, New Jersey, deed passing title from Governor Andrew Hamilton and Agnes, his wife, under date of 13 September 1700 to Jan Joosten of Marbletown, New York, yeoman, lying contiguous on the South branch of the Raritan River near the present Somerville, New Jersey to three other parcels also granted. As a whole, the plantation aggregated 1835 acres.
"His Will filed with inventory of his personal property in Burlington County Surrogate's Office, dated 13 June 1706, was written in Dutch. His wife was to retain full possession of the estate during her lifetime, then in was to be divided, son Joost 1/2; Joost and Gysbert to have land at Marbletown, Joost to have 1/2 and then the other 1/2 to be divided between them; Geertje to have land at Wassemaker's; children of deceased daughter Lysbeth to have their portion in money from the other children of Jan the testator [Ulster County Probate Record]."
Jan died in 1706.
Joost Jansen VAN METEREN was born in 1652 at Gelderland, Holland, the son of Jan Joosten Vanmetern and Macyke Hendrickse.
He married Sarah Du Bois on 12 December 1682 at Kingston, Ulster County, New York.
Their children (with 2 submittals giving the surname as Van Metre or Van Meteren) were:
His will was dated 13 June 1706 and he died at Salem County, New Jersey.
Jan Jansen VAN METEREN (also known as John) was baptized on 14 October 1683 at Kingston, Ulster County, New York, the son of Joost Jansen Van Meteren and Sarah Du Bois.
He married Sara Bodine (born in 1687, the daughter of Jean Bodine and Marie Crocheron of Staten Island) in 1705 at Somerset County, New Jersey.
Their children, all baptized at Raritan, New Jersey were:
Sara died in 1709 at Somerset County, New Jersey.
He married Margaret Miller Mollenauer (or Mulinaur) at Somerville, Somerset County, New Jersey.
Their children, all born at Somerset County, New Jersey with the surname as Van Meter, were:
The family settled in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where Jan became a wealthy land owner and horse breeder. "Kegley's Virginia Frontier in describing the earliest history of Virginia, says: 'The Van Meters cross the Powtomack (Potomac River). John and Isaac Van Meter were traders who knew the country about the Potomac and the Shenandoah as early as 1728. After 1721 Isaac lived in New Jersey, but John had moved westward toward the southwest part of Maryland. In 1730 their petitions for 10,000 acres each in the forks of the Sherando River and 20,000 more for other families were granted. This was not to interfere with the surveys of Carter and Page.' ...Jost Hite with Robert McKay began acquiring land in the Shenandoah Valley in 1731. They with one hundred families were desirous of seating (settling) themselves on the back of the Great Mountains on land lying between the land of John Van Meter, Jacob Stover, John Fishback and others. ... Hite acquired the Van Meter grants in 1734 and patents began to issue to his settlers, one thousand acres to each family ... joining the land of 'Jost Heyd' and others.
"Mrs. Sims' article (material provided by Mrs. Ruth Bruner Sims of Frankfort, Kentucky) says John Van Meter and his brother Isaac, were granted 110,000 acres of land in the Shenandoah Valley by the Royal Governor, William Gooch, which they later sold to their cousin, Jost Hite, after selecting choice sites for themselves, while it was still a wilderness."
He died on 13 August 1745 at Apequon, Winchester, Frederick County, Virginia and his will was probated there on 3 September 1745. "He drew up a lengthy will in which Jacob Van Meter was called 'my fourth and youngest son,' by which he inherited an equal share of 'all Staylen (stallions), geldings, mares, colts.' He inherited land, but not the estate 'Opequen,' on which his father lived, since he was the youngest."
Jacob Jansen VAN METER was born 16 March 1723 at Somerset County, New Jersey, the son of Jan Jansen Van Meteren and Margaret Miller Mollenauer (or Mulinaur).
He married Letitia Strode on 30 August 1741 at Frederick County, Virginia.
Their children, apparently all born at Fredericks County, Virginia (later Green County, Pennsylvania) were:
Jacob served in Captain Richard Morgan's company from Mecklinburg, Virginia in the French and Indian War from 1756 to 1758 [Shepherdtown Register, 14 January 1903].
"About 1768, Jacob Van Meter, together with John Swan, Sr., and others made a tour of the lands, then claimed as part of northwestern Virginia, since established as a southwestern part of Pennsylvania. They had decided to sell their property in the Winchester vicinity and locate on land which would be granted for service in the French and Indian War. They reached the vicinity of present Carmichaelstown (in present Greene County, Pennsylvania) and 'tomahawked' (marked on trees) such land as they wanted along Muddy Creek in what is known as 'Ten Mile County,' land lying along Ten Mile Creek, a tributary of the Monongahela River, on the western side of that stream. Returning home, they brought back their families, slaves and such household goods as could be carried on pack horses. There were about fifty people in the party which settled along Muddy Creek.
"Van Meter was granted 400 acres of land on the west side of the Monongahela, Application Number 2405, dated 3 April 1769, also a grant for 211 acres, a tract called 'Burgundy,' also on the west side of the river.
"John Swan, Thomas Hughes and Henry Van Meter, brother of Jacob, were also granted land for services, and all four erected forts, located near each other on bottom land, not far from the mouth of Muddy Creek: Fort Van Meter, by Jacob Van Meter, on Muddy Creek; Fort Swan, by John Swan, on Swan's Run, and another Fort Van Meter, by Henry Van Meter, on Swan's Run. The location of Thomas Hughes' fort is not listed.
"That Jacob Van Meter was a deeply religious man is attested by his actions in helping organize three Baptist churches in his life time. Ellis' History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania relates the story of the forming of the Great Bethel Regular Baptist church: 'This organization was formed in the year 1770, and is evidently one of the first religious societies established within the boundaries of Fayette County (Pennsylvania).... In the oldest books of records ... the following letter is copied verbatim, viz: 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Great Bethel, Constituted as is supposed in Province of Pennsylvania, holding Believers, Baptism, &c, sindeth greeting To all Christian People to whom these may Concern, ... Sign'd by us this Eighth day of November in the year of our lord Christ--1770.
Witness our hands, Jacob Vanmetre Richard Hall Zepheniah Blackford Because we are few in number our sisters are allowed to sign. Rachel Sutton Lettice Vanmetre Sarah Hall
N.B. 'That this Church was Constituted by me, Nov. 7th, 1770, and that the Bearer was licensed to Preach before me, or in my Presence, as witness my hand this 8th day of Nov., 1770. Henry Crosbye.''
"Jacob Van Meter was instrumental in the organization of another church while living in Pennsylvania: Goshen Baptist Church, organized in 1774 in Garrard's Fort, when he moved there. In that original body were found ten members of the Van Meter family: Jacob and his wife, Letitia, Rebecca and her husband, Edward Rawlings, Susannah, and her husband, Reverend John Garrard, Mary and her husband, David Henton (who was the first clerk of this church), Elizabeth, and her husband John Swan, Jr.
"A list of the families who settled in the 'Ten Mile Country' is of interest in that their associations did not end there, but through marriage and otherwise, continued in Kentucky: Van Meter, Swan, Strode, Hughes, Shelby, Harrod, Coleman, Brown, Rice, Biggs, Kincaid, Chenoweth, Garrard, Heaton (Henton),. They doubtless regarded themselves as being 'Virginians,' living on the land claimed by both Virginia and Pennsylvania, and had a felling of support for a 'fellow Virginian,' George Rogers Clark, not felt by the Pennsylvanians in Clark's military campaigns during the Revolution.
"The Harrods are familiar names to students of Revolutionary War history and of Clark's campaign in the Northwest. The Van Meters and Swan family were also represented in Clark's force. William Harrod was a captain in the Illinois Regiment, John Swan, Jr. a lieutenant, Jacob Van Meter, son of Henry Van Meter, and nephew of Jacob Van Meter Sr., was ensign of the regiment. Richard Chenoweth, John Hughes and Isaac Van Meter, son of Jacob Van Meter Sr., are listed as privates among those who received land for their services under Clark. The 'Ten Mile Country' was well represented in the Illinois Regiment....
"The Revolution had not ended but the men from 'Ten Mile Country' had returned from the war in the Northwest Territory and some would be in the colony of over a hundred people organized by Jacob Van Meter, Sr. to move to 'Kaintucke.'"
He was Constable on 6 December 1774 when Joseph Hill was appointed in his stead [Annual, Carnegie Museum, V. 1, p. 526].
He was on the Committee for Augusta County, Virginia which met in Pittsburgh on 16 May 1775.
On the minutes of the Court of Yohogania County, Virginia (prior to the date when that section was established as part of Pennsylvania) for 23 March 1779, Jacob and his son Abraham and others produced recommendations from the Court of Monongahela County, Virginia to pass unmolested to the Falls of the Ohio (now Louisville, Kentucky), which recommendations were read and approved.
On 18 September 1779 Jacob Van Meter and his family had been granted certificates of dismission by the Goshen Baptist Church.
Jacob took 27 house boats at Fort Pitt in 1779, loaded with household goods, livestock and anything they could pile on the boats, and went down the Ohio River, landing near Bear Grass (now Louisville) [Draper Manuscripts CC-11, p. 232].
"All of the Van Meter children, with the exception of daughter Eleanor, accompanied their parents, together with their husbands and wives. One babe in arms was in the party, the little daughter of Lieutenant John Swan Jr., and his wife, Elizabeth Van Meter. Swan was sitting on the deck on one of the boats with his little girl in his arms when he was struck by an Indian arrow, fired from the river bank. His wife grabbed his gun and began helping the men ward off the attack. Another tragedy struck the part when Mary Van Meter's husband, David Henton, fell into the river while helping unload the boats and was drowned.
"In the party were two families of slaves belonging to the senior Van Meter. In his will were provisions that they were to be set free upon the death of his wife. They were to serve her during her lifetime, but if she lived until they were thirty years old, they were to be given their freedom."
They started in September 1779 and arrived at Severns Valley, Hardin County, Kentucky in June 1780. They were first to settle between the Ohio and Green Rivers in the Wilderness, a colony of 100 persons. He was active in military operations along the Ohio; served under General George Rogers Clark in Kaskaskia against the Indians under renegade Simon Girty in 1782 (when they tried to run the white settlers out of Kentucky). He was on the Coshocton campaign in Captain William Crawford's Company under the command of his nephew Colonel David Shepherd in 1791 [Wither's Chronicals p. 133 and Shepherd's Papers, V. 4, p. 3].
"Louisville, which had been established as a town at the Falls of the Ohio in 1780, saw great numbers of settlers from Virginia and Pennsylvania arrive by way of the Ohio River and scatter south into the country toward the Green River. Among them were Jacob Van Meter and his family who had arrived at the Falls in the previous fall and waited for the warm spring months before moving on to their new home.
"Van Meter came to Severns Valley and later settled on the farm known as the 'Strickler Place,' about two miles from Elizabethtown on Billy's Creek, near where it joins that main stream of Valley Creek. Jefferson County records show that Jacob Van Meter, Stephen Rawlings and Edward Rawlings bought land from John Severns, who also sold 400 acres to Andrew Hynes in November 1779.
He built a fort near Haycraft's soon after his arrival. The following account first appeared in the Elizabethtown News in 1869 and was republished in book form in 1889-90: "In the year 1780 the first settlements were made around the present site of Elizabethtown, then Jefferson county, Virginia, and the three forts were erected. They were rather stockades, afterward called stations.
"The manner of erecting these forts was to dig a trench with spades or hoes or such implements as they could command, then set in split timbers, reaching ten or twelve feet above the ground and fixed around the proposed ground sufficiently large to contain some five, six or eight dwellings with a block house, as a kind of citadel with port holes.
"That was considered a sufficient defense against the Indians armed with rifles or bows and arrows, but with a siege gun of the present day (1869) a well directed shot would level a hundred yards of these pristine fortifications.
"The mode of attack by the Indians when in sufficient force was to try to storm the fort, or by lighted torches thrown upon the roofs of the buildings within to burn out the besieged, but they rarely succeeded in setting fire. If in small force the Indians would conceal themselves behind trees and watch a whole day for some unwary pale-face to show himself above the fortification and pick him off."
"He then built a grain mill on Valley Creek where Billy's Creek enters it. Others say he also had a still. (He had a still and a tavern license to keep travelers in his home at the time of his death.) He is said to have raised the first wheat in Hardin County, having brought the seed with him from Virginia.
"A year after arrival in Severns Valley, Jacob Van Meter assisted in organizing the Severns Valley Baptist Church, the oldest church west of the Allegheny Mountains, still in existence and one of the largest Baptist bodies in Kentucky at this date. Jess Thompson reported that the church was "established under a spreading sugar tree in the Kentucky wilderness on 17 June 1781." His wife, his son, Jacob, Jr., and his Negro man, Bambo, were also members. Many of his descendants have become noted in carrying on the work of the church.
"The elder Van Meter was an extensive landholder, having fourteen grants of land from the Virginia government, dated 1783 and 1784. One was a preemption Treasury Warrant signed by Beverly Randolph. Doubtless, some of the land was divided among his children and members of his family. The Auditor's office has no record of land granted to his son-in-law, Samuel Haycraft.
"Van Meter built a small grist mill at the mouth of Billy's Creek for grinding corn and wheat. Corn was ground there for the small distillery operated by Samuel Haycraft. Samuel Haycraft, Jr. who wrote the History of Elizabethtown mentions that, as a young boy it was his duty to go with a bag of corn three times daily (Sunday excepted) to the mill of his grandfather.
Jacob died at his home in Hardin County, Kentucky on 16 November 1798. He and Letitia, who died the following year, were buried side by side in a family cemetery. His son, Jacob, procured a sandstone rock for a tombstone and cut the following inscription on it: 'Here Lizes The Body of Jacob Van Meter Died in the 76 Yare of His Age November the 16, 1798.' Jess Thompson states that "The spellings in this rude inscription appear to be an attempt to give to the words the sound that old Jacob gave to them throughout his life." Jacob's son-in-law, Haycraft, stated "Therefore let no man pretend to criticise it (the epitaph) or alter it. It is a jewel to me, so all mankind let it alone. It is the honest homespun epitaph of a good man and Christian, who braved all the perils of his day, honorable, kind, hospitable and generous, and truly a 'patriarch'."
At the time of his death, he owned 7,891 acres. The inventory of his estate covers four pages of Will Book A, pages 80 to 84 and 216, Hardin County Court.
In 1965 a descendant, Mrs. Lee Sims (Ruth Bruner) of Frankfort, Kentucky had the ashes removed to the Elizabethtown City Cemetery, Hardin County, Kentucky, as all of Jacob's home farm was being made into a subdivision of Elizabethtown. It is beside his daughter Margaret and her husband Samuel Haycraft that they are now resting and their grave has a beautiful bronze marker to tell of his exploits:
JACOB VAN METER SENIOR
1723-1798
American Patriot - Soldier - Kentucky Pioneer. Ensign 12th Virginia Regiment in French and Indian War. Captain, Illinois Regiment, Virginia State. American Patriot-Soldier. Kentucky Pioneer Troops in American Revolution and served on Committee of Observation at Pittsburgh.
Commanded a Company in General George Rogers Clark's Expedition to take Northwest Territory. Led Band of 100 Persons from Virginia to Kentucky Down the Ohio River on 27 Flat Boats to Severns Valley in 1779-1780. Built one of the first Forts in Kentucky and Helped Establish the First Permanent Settlement between the Falls Of the Ohio and Green Rivers at Elizabethtown.
Prominent in Founding Hardin County. One of the Organizers of Severns Valley Baptist Church 1781, Oldest Church West of the Alleghany Mountains. Captain Jacob Van Meter Chapter Daughters of American Revolution Named in his Honor.
His Wife
LETITIA STROUD VAN METER
1725-1799
Married in Virginia 1741
Mary VAN METER was born in Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia) on 11 February 1757, the daughter of Jacob Van Meter and Letitia Strode (or Stroude).
She married David Henton, son of John Henton and Esther Evans, in 1773.
Their children were:
David Henton was a descendant of Sr. Thomas Hinton, one of the largest stockholders in the London Company, for the settlement of Virginia. David was drowned in the Ohio River during the spring of 1780 while on the way to Kentucky with the Jacob Van Meter family. His body was never recovered.
"Mary had two or more children by her first husband who were thus left without a father in the new land. Settling in what was then Jefferson County, Virginia, in the Indian troubles that ensued, became known in Kentucky annals as the 'Widow Hinton.' ...She was in the thick of the Indian fighting that reddened the soil of Kentucky with the blood of white settlers...
In 1781 we find the 'Widow Hinton' at Squire Boone's station, on Brashear Creek, sometimes called 'Painted Stone,' near present Shelbyville. In April of that year, a band of Indians, led by the white renegade, Simon Girty, attacked the station. Squire Boone was twice wounded in this affray, one arm being so badly shattered that it never fully healed. Girty was said to have boasted afterward of how, on this occasion, he 'had made Squire Boone's white shirt fly.'. In September of that year (1781) it was decided to abandon Squire Boone's.
"On September 14th, all of the families, with the exception of Squire Boone's and the 'Widow Hinton's' (there were not enough pack horses to take them) started off but were ambushed when 21 miles out and still eight miles from Linn's Station. No men were left at Boone's Station except Squire and his son Moses, a boy of about twelve years. A day or so afterward a large party of about three hundred men from the Falls settlements (Falls of the Ohio, where now is Louisville) marched out, buried the dead and went to the relief of Squire Boone's Station. They reached there probably about 17 September and rescued the families of Squire Boone and Mrs. Hinton, together with the stock which had wandered back, and much of the plunder lost by the moving families."
In the late summer or early fall of 1779, Major William Chenoweth of Revolutionary War fame appeared on Pottenger's Creek in Kentucky and entered lands in then Jefferson (now Nelson) County, adjacent to present Hardin County, which grants had been issued by Patrick Henry, governor of Virginia. On 5 March 1781, Major Chenoweth was appointed administrator of the estate of David (or John) Hinton.
She married William Chenoweth in October 1781 at Hardin, Nelson County, Kentucky and had nine children with him.
Mary died on 29 June 1832 at their home in Deatsville, Nelson County, Kentucky, near Dateville and about ten miles from Bardstown, the county seat and scene of 'My Old Kentucky Home.' She was buried at Wilson Creek Baptist Church, built on land which William gave for the church which was organized in 1801. The graves of William and Mary are well preserved and marked with stones. Their home is also standing, a large stone house and the spring where they kept milk, is arched over with stones and in good condition.