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Jasper County, Iowa
Historical and Genealogical Data Exchange
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Harlan
Meredith Mr.
Harlan Meredith was born in Sugar Creek Township, Poweshiek County, Iowa, August
21, 1879, the son of Robert and Alice Rachel (Sheridan) Meredith, both natives
of Indiana, the father born at Westfield, on July 13, 1846, and the mother in
Henry County on March 17, 1850. The
father moved from Indiana with his parents about 1863 to Poweshiek County, Iowa,
and there he grew to manhood. It
was about three years later, in 1865 that Alice R. Sheridan left the Hoosier
state and came to Poweshiek County, Iowa, where she met and married Robert
Meredith in October 1868. Their
parents had settled on adjoining farms, so the parents of the subject
practically grew up together from childhood.
Robert Meredith was a very industrious and thrifty young man and a large
degree of success always attended his efforts, and as the years passed he has
accumulated valuable and desirable lands aggregating eight hundred and fifty
acres, mostly in Poweshiek County; this he has placed under excellent
improvements and a high state of cultivation. In 1880 he and his family moved to
Lynnville, Jasper County, this state, and bought one hundred and sixty acres of
land near the town, and there the elder Meredith prospered, added to his
holdings from time to time and became known as one of the leading farmers and
stock raisers of this part of the County. In 1909 having
accumulated a competency, he and his wife retired from active life and moved to
California, where they established their permanent home, turning the farms here
over to the son, Harlan, of this review, who has full charge of them, and he has
operated the same in a manner that reflects much credit upon his ability, keen
discernment and progressive ideas. In 1890 Robert
Meredith started on a trip around the world, which he completed in a year and
six days. Upon his return he
embodied his interesting experiences in a book entitled, Around the World on
Sixty Dollars. It attained a large sale almost immediately after publication,
having been issued in a number of editions, and it has been placed in many
schools over the country for its educational interest.
It is well and entertainingly written, having a pleasing literary finish
and conception and is a most worthy contribution to the travel literature of the
world. It goes without saying that
to make such a trip proves the individual's grit, tact, diplomacy and other
attributes of a sterling nature. He
stopped quite a while on the Sandwich Islands, where he worked as overseer of a
sugar plantation, and he also made an extensive visit to the Holy Land and to
Greece. Such a trip is usually made by tourists at the cost of
several thousand dollars, and for one to accomplish the feat, by expending only
sixty dollars above what he earned during the trip, certainly is criterion
enough of his resourcefulness. He
is now engaged in the real estate and orange growing business in California.
Robert Meredith has always been a very progressive man along educational
lines, and each of his children excepting the youngest is a graduate of Penn
College and has had one or more years in some Eastern institution. The son, Harlan
Meredith, grew up on the home farm and was educated in the Lynnville high school
and Penn College at Oskaloosa, of which institution he is one of the directors.
He also spent two years in Columbia University, New York city, taking a
course in law, but he has never practiced the profession for which he prepared
himself, but returned to Lynnville, Iowa, in the spring of 1907 and has since
been engaged in the management of his father's extensive farming interests.
He has remained unmarried and his younger sister, Lucile, keeps house for
him. There were seven children in
the family of Robert Meredith and wife, named as follows: Clara, deceased; Mary
Anna married Benjamin L. Miller; Rosella married Harry J. Dutton; Harlan of this
review; Lucile; Ralph Bartlett was next in order of birth; Roberta is the
youngest. Harlan Meredith carries on
general farming on an extensive scale and he feeds a large number of cattle
annually. He and his father own
several tracts of unimproved lands in California and Old Mexico. This family belongs to the Friends Church and are known for their high sense of honor, hospitality, genial natures and steady habits. The Past and Present
of Jasper County, Iowa, Gen. James B. Weaver, Editor-in-Chief, 1912, B. F.
Bowden & Co., Indianapolis, IN, p. |
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