Ezra Manning Meeker

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=meeker&GSfn=e...

Ezra Meeker was born in Huntsville, Butler County, Ohio to Jacob Redding and Phoebe Baker Meeker on December 29, 1830. The early years of Ezra's life were a time of frequent moves. In 1836 the family moved to Lockland, Ohio, near Cincinnati. The following year Ezra's father and his brother, Usual Meeker, took their families west by covered wagon, some 200 miles, to the city of Attica, Indiana on the Wabash River. Ezra's mother and his two youngest siblings rode inside, while Uncle Usual drove the wagon. Brother Oliver and six-year old Ezra walked. In 1841 Jacob Meeker moved his family once again, this time to the suburbs of Indianapolis. In 1845, with $1000 in coins gifted by Ezra's grandfather Baker, the Meekers bought a farm five miles southwest of Indianapolis. It was here that Ezra met and wooed Eliza Jane Sumner. On May 13, 1851 the couple married in the Sumner home. That fall the newlyweds moved to Eddyville, Iowa. Uncle Charles Meeker (Jacob's brother, who came to Iowa around 1843) offered Ezra and Eliza a place to stay on his farm just west of Eddyville while they got settled. Eliza Jane did not like how Uncle Charles treated his wife and as a result they moved into town and rented a 10 x 10 room from Rev. B. A. Spaulding.

. Ezra decided to join his brother, and after two weeks of preparation, and in partnership with William Buck, and the McAuley family, the small wagon train was off for Oregon. The trip west over the Oregon Trail made an indelible impact on Meeker and the last twenty-five years of his life were devoted to its preservation.

For the next 30 years Ezra farmed, primarily growing hops used in the brewing of beer. This crop made the Meekers quite wealthy and the family became prominent in the affairs of the growing territory. 

In the later part of his life he spent much of his time trying to build public awareness of the old Oregon Trail. He felt that the current generation had lost interest in the trail and the importance it had on settling the west, and he was determined to do something to change that. He assembled a covered wagon made of parts of wagons that had actually gone over the Oregon Trail in the 1850s, secured a yoke of oxen and in January 1906, at age 75, started east along the trail. At towns along the way he arranged for the erection of stone markers to memorialize the trail and the pioneers who traveled it. His appearance, along with the oxen and wagon, drew large crowds everywhere he went. He sold postcards and lectured to help defray expenses and when he reached eastern Nebraska he published a book, "The Ox Team or the Old Oregon Trail," about his current and past adventures along that trail. It eventually sold 10,000 copies.