Samuel HAYCRAFT

                   From "Haycraft's History of Elizabethtown" by Samuel Haycraft, "originally serialized in the 'Elizabethtown News' in 1869, also during the 1880s and early 1890s. And for the third time in 1905." Copyright 1960 by the Hardin County Historical Society.

Jacob Vanmeter, Sr., with his family, emigrated from Monongahala [sic] (called by the old folks "Monongahale,") in 1779, landing at the falls of the Ohio that fall, and in the year 1780 came to Severns Valley and settled on the farm now owned by George W. Strickler, two miles from Elizabethtown, on Valley Creek, at the mouth of Billy's Creek, on which last- named creek he built a grist mill for corn and wheat; and although there remains at this day not a vestige of that mill, yet I ought to know where it stood, as my father carried on a one-horse distillery, and when I was about eight years old it was my daily business (Sunday excepted) to go with a bag of corn three times a day. My grandfather continued to reside there until his death, which occurred on the 16th day of November, 1798. He was in the original constitution of Severns Valley Baptist Church on the 17th day of June, 1781. His wife (my grandmother), his son, Jacob, and his Negro man, Bambo, were also members.

At his death he left a large family, all grown. It is now nearly seventy-two years since his death, and, like the old patriot Jacob, his descendants have multiplied like a fruitful vine that ran over the wall, for they are scattered East, West, North and South, and may be found in every State and territory in the Union, and from the least calculation that can be made they now amount to at least 3,000 souls. And that will not appear so surprising when you are informed that one out of his numerous grandsons had his thirtieth child born the night of his death. But that was over the average of the family, as the number of the most of his descendants to each family ran on an average from nine to eleven children, but frequently exceeded those numbers. My mother had eleven.

My grandfather was buried on his own farm, I was present at his interment, being then three years and three months old, and have a distinct recollection of the occasion.