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• Gender	Male
  Person ID	I13928	Brainard (Brainerd) / Foster / Fish
  Last Modified	08 Mar 2005 00:00:00
  Family	Lucy SWAN
  Children	> 1. Lucy MEECH > 2. Juliette MEECH
  Family ID	F6476	Group Sheet

• Sources

  [S64] [BOOK] Pioneer Families of Cleveland, Ohio 1796-1840, Gertrude Van Rensselaer Wickham, (Evangelical Publishing House; 1914), SC929.377132 W632p., Pg.438-439. Gurdon Meech of Bozrah, Conn., came to Cleveland in 1832. His wife, Lucy Swan, daughter of Deacon Adam and Lucy Spicer Swan, was born in Stonington, Conn., and after her marriage lived in Bozrah many years. Her daughter Lucy was married to Jabez Gallup two years before, and had preceded them to Cleveland, and the youngest one, Martha Meech, was 9 years old. Mr. Gallup was living on Water street, where Childs, Groff & Co.'s store now stands, and with him the family remained for six weeks, meanwhile making preparation for a home of their own as soon as possible. But they were all taken very ill with fever and ague, and Mr. Meech abandoned his plans of living in Cleveland, and gladly accepted-Mr. Gallup's proposition to take possession of a small log-house that stood on a farm he owned in Newburgh. In this they lived until the purchase of one from Theodore Miles, standing on the old Newburgh road at its junction with Woodland Hills Ave. Afterward a railroad passed close to the house. Mrs. Meech, small, slender, slim, had been the oldest of her family, and unused to hardship of any kind, and, arriving much later than many of her neighbors, never experienced their earlier hardships. But even so, things were quite different in Ohio, and much required of her that she would not have encountered in the old home. Her first new experience was in handling a gun, never having shot one in her life. But an owl was after her chickens, and with much trepidation she took down her husband's weapon and fired at it. It fell, but she was afraid to go near it until Mr. Meech returned. Mr. Meech had a farm well stocked for those days, and it suffered greatly in the grasshopper scourge that, one summer, swept over Ohio. The insects came after currants and cherries had ripened, but there was no fruit or grain of any kind after that. There were no apples, the main stay of housewives, consequently little sauce for a year, and no mince-pies, that much-prized dessert of early days. The women, ever resourceful, stewed up the dried pumpkin left over from the year previous, and sparingly flavored it with boiled cider, also a left-over. Following the example of his neighbors, Mr. Meech killed off all his cattle except a cow. One morning, he came into the house from the barn, and sitting down by the fire began to weep. Mrs. Meech saw the tears tricking silently down his cheeks, begged him to tell her what troubled him so. "My poor horses have asked me for something to eat, and I haven't a thing to give them," he exclaimed. But that day, a friend in the city sent word by his hired man that a vessel had arrived in the river with a load of wet rye which could be used for feed. His hungry horses were soon hitched up, and in no time he was on his way for some of that rye. This was early in the spring, but soon after the grass began to get high enough for stock to nibble, and the worst of the famine was over. Mr. and Mrs. Gurdon Meech had 9 children of their own, and adopted 7 children who were either orphans or with parents too poor to support them. Several were taken by the request of dying mothers, and tenderly cared for until able to face life unaided. One of these, a girl, married in Connecticut, and removed to Liverpool, O. Hearing that her benefactors were in Cleveland, she came to visit them, and although 40 years had passed since their last meeting, they recognized each other at once. Another, a boy, followed them from Bozrah. He afterward worked for Seaman & Smith, for years, making shoes by hand. Yet another boy was given a profession, became a celebrated physician, and today his grandchildren are living on the old Meech place in Bozrah. The Meech children were: Lucy Meech, m. Jabez Gallup. Angeline Meech, m. Calvin Parker. Abigail Meech, m. Dr. Smith.. Eliza Meech, m. Henry Blair. Juliette Meech, m. Isham Morgan. Nelson Meech, m. Eliza Quiggan. Martha Meech, m. O. M. Burke Olive Meech, died unmarried.