Charles Meyer is classed among the old-timers of San Joaquin county, where he arrived and took up his location in 1852, and almost continuously for a half century he has employed his energies in the most wholesome and honorable occupation of farming and stock-raising near Linden. He has high efficiency in his work and has been very successful from a material standpoint, and as a citizen he also ranks very high in the county.

He is a native of hanover, Germany, where he was born on November 12, 1832. He was reared in his native fatherland until he was nineteen years old, receiving a good education, and in 1851 he carried out his determination to make America his permanent home. He took passage on a sailing vessel at Bremen, and after forty-five days' sail reached New York. He remained in New York city for a few months, and in the following year came out to California, making the journey by way of Panama. From San Francisco he came to San Joaquin county, and engaged in freighting to the eastern mines up to 1854, when he engaged in farming on his own account, near Linden, where he has continued this industry and accumulated a goodly share of worldly possession during the subsequent half century, owning about seventeen hundred acres of land under a high state of cultivation.

He was married in 1861 to Miss Charlotte Hoeffner, who was born in Germany, and who died having been the mother of six children, four of whom are living, as follows: Doretta H., the wife of George F. Schuler, of Stockton; Henry K., residing near Linden; John C., also near Linden and Charles W., near Linden. In 1888 Mr. Meyer married for his present wife Mrs. Margaret Meyer, who was born in Hanover, Germany, December 8, 1841. She emigrated to America in 1865, and came out to California in the same year. She was married in 1868 to John Meyer, also a native of Hanover, who had come to California in 1856, and lived in San Joaquin county till his demise. by this husband she had four children: Henry C., of Stockton; John D., at home; Doris A., at home; and Charles F., at home.

Mr. Meyer is a Democrat in politics, and both he and his wife are members of the Lutheran church at Stockton. He was a son of Cord and Doretta (Rippe) Meyer, and his was was a daughter of Dietrich and Gretchen Osmus, and all were natives of Hanover, Germany. The Meyer home is one of the most beautiful places on Linden Road.

Source: History of the New California Its Resources and People, Volume II

The Lewis Publishing Company - 1905
Edited by Leigh H. Irvine