Our history from emigration in 1663 to about 1900

Van Meter

An Interesting Sketch of That Well Known Family

The following synopsis of the progenitors of Isaac Van Meter of Old Fields is excepted from the "Van Meter ancestry" contained in "Judge John Inskeep and his Descendants" which its compilers Mr. H E Wallace, Jr., Mrs. A. W. Stubblefield have in the course of preparation.

"The VanMeter family descended from two progenitors Jan Gysbertsen Van Meteren and Jan Joost Van Meteren both of whom emigrated from the province of Gelderland Holland, extend over the whole territory of the United States Individual members of this family have had more than an ordinary influence on their times but it lay with the ancestors of the branch to which the subject of our sketch belongs to be the more influential.

There is scarce a history of any importance dealing with the more detailed facts of the history of the country that does not refer to one or more members of these families. Naturally there are many genealogical notes contained in these accounts. Besides these, there have been more elaborate attempts to set forth the genealogy if the family. Among these may be mentioned B. F. Van Meters, "Genealogies" and "biographical sketches", "The Van Meters in Shords Fenwick Colony", Beckmans "Early Dutch settlers of Monmouth Co., NJ.", Bergens "Annals of Kings Co., NY.", ans a series of articles in the "West Virginia Historical Magazine" (a publication by the way worthy of support by the citizens of the state) by Miss Anna Hunter Van Meter and S. Gordon Smythe Esq., of West Conshohocken PA., a gentleman to whom we are deeply indebted.

The account herewith set forth differs from any heretofore published genealogy and it is the result of many years of study on the part of the gentleman last referred to and ourselves. Previous accounts of the Van Meters have stated that the Van Meters of Virginia were direct descendants of Jan Gysbertsen Van Meteren who with his son Kryn Jansen Van Meteren then thirteen years old emigrated from Bommell Holland in 1663 landing at New Amsterdam. They migrated to New Utrecht, Kings County, NY., and later to Monmouth Co., NJ. Beckman’s "Early Dutch settlers of Monmouth Co.," disproves the fact as to the descent from "Kryn Jansen." This book contains a complete genealogy of the descendants of Kryn Jansen in which Isaac of Old Field does not appear and which further accounts for all males to whom Isaac of Old Fields could be a son, therefore excluding him.

A doubt exists however concerning the relationship of Isaac’s (of Old Fields) progenitor and Jan Gysbertsen Van Meteren the father of Kryn Jansen. It is more than likely they were of close relationship and possible that they were brothers.

It was in the year preceding the emigration of Jan Gysbertsen Van Meteren of Bommel, that Jan Joost Van Meteren of Thierlewaalt, with his wife and five children emigrated to New Amsterdam. He came in the "Fox" which arrived in August of 1662. The fall of that same year he settled in Wildwyek (now Kingston Ulster Co., NY) and dwelt many years in this vicinity which included the towns of Hurley, Marbletown, and Esoplus. From the records he appears to be among the earliest settlers of the place and this characteristic has appeared in many of his descendants. It was a wild region these hardy Dutch emigrants cleared and the dangers of Indian despredation were ever present with them.

Existing documents show continuous petty transgressions on the part of the red men which resulted in the "Second Esopus War" in June of 1663, when Hurley and part of Kingston were burned and many of the settlers were killed and other taken prisoner. Among those captured were the wife of Jan Joost, two of his children and Catherine du Bois the wife of Louis du Bois later one of the patentees of New Paltz and their daughter Sarah, whom Jan Joost’s son, later married. Three months later many of the prisoners were recaptured by a force under the leadership of Captain Martin Keiger. The next year in which Jan Joost is mentioned is 1665 he was appointed referee in a law suit, also was one of the sponsors at the baptism and was appointed "schepen." In the years following his name frequently appears upon civil and church records, and among them is his appointment as deacon in 1667, "schepen" in 1668, and one of the four magistrates for Hurley and Marbletown in 1673. He also took the oath of allegiance in Ulster Co., in 1689. The church records also disclosed frequent mention of his wife Maeycken Hendricks, the daughter of Hendricks of Laeckervelt and his wife Anne gan Jans, but whether this was the mother of Joost Jan Van Meteren his son the next descent to Isaac of Old Fields is a question.

Joost Van Meteren the son of Jan Joost, (the second generation) and the father of Isaac of Old Fields was married in New Paltz, Ulster County, NY., December 12, 1682 to Sarah du Bois, who is mentioned above. Four children were born to them while they resided in Kingston and baptized there, I, Jan (John) In 1683; who undoubtedly later settled in Berkeley Co., Va. Dying there in 1745 and leaving eleven children, five sons and six daughters, one of whom Elizabeth married, Col. Thomas Shepherd, and another Solomon Hedges (This Solomon Hedges is the one mentioned in George Washington Journal when surveying beyond the Blue Ridge in 1747-48). II. Rebecca in 1686 who married in 1704 Cornelius Elting and had ten children, III. Lysbeth in 1689 of whom nothing is yet known. IV. Hendrick (Henry) in 1695; who married a number of times and finally settled in Salem County, NJ., where he died in 1759 leaving ten children. His last wife was Mary, sister of Erasmus Fetters.

Isaac the fifth child of Joost Jan Van Meteren and Sara Du Bois was not baptized at Kingston, so far as the records show, but when and where is not known. Whether there were other children or not , is not positively known but indications point that there were.

To return to Jan Joost the progenitor, until 1695 his name as above stated appears at frequent intervals upon the records of Ulster Co., NY. In this year however he purchased land in West Jersey, and in this state he appears to have had his residence for the remainder of his life. His son Joost Jan Van Meteren with his family accompanied him. The progenitor died in 1706, his will dated June 13^th of this year, being filed among the Dutch will of New Jersey and is sworn to by John Van Metre of Burlington, who is Joost Jan Van Meter his son. By this time the same spelling had become anglicized and to this we will adhere.

John Van Meter (Joost Jan Van Meteren) is the "John the Indian trader" so frequently mentioned in history. By the nature of his life, his habitation was seldom fixed for a definite length of time but proof exists that he dwelt in different periods in the states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. This roving disposition has stamped to a lesser degree in his sons John and Isaac. It is with the latter however we are more interested.

Isaac married about 1717 Ann or Annah (Annetgie) Wynkoop. She was a daughter of Gerritt Wynkoop and his wife Helena Fokker, one of the issue of nine children, born in Ulster Co., NY., between the years 1694 – 1713. The Wynkoops removed from New York to Mooreland Manor, Penn. About the latter year. It was here that Isaac married. Unfortunately the records of the church, and the church always followed the settlement, are destroyed. In the beginning it was the fatherland religion, but was admitted to the Presbytery of Philadelphia; which, consultation to those records will show. This accounts for the change to Presbyterianism of Isaac and his family.

The next definite date in Isaac’s life brings him to Salem Co., NJ., and here was his residence until his hegira to Va., where he died. In 1714 Daniel Cox, of New Jersey sold 3000 acres of land to Jacob du Bois of Ulster Co., NY. , (a brother of Sarah du Bois, the wife of Jan Joost Van Meteren) Sarah du Bois, John Van Meter and Isaac Van Meter, (the mother and two sons.) This was subsequently divided among them of which John individually acquired 400 acres and Isaac 430 acres.

Isaac bought many other tracts in Salem Co., also and passed a very active life there as did his brother John and Henry. The most important probably to his descendant, being the prominent part he took in the founding of the Pittsgrove (Pilesgrove) Presbyterian Church of Salem Co., NY. The covenant of which was signed 13^th April 1741. This he is designated in signing as number 1: his wife Hannah, 2; their son Henry, 3; and their daughter Sarah, 4.

In 1730, on the 17^th of June, Isaac obtained from Governor Gooch, of Virginia, a tract of 10,000 acres "beyond the Blue Ridge" upon which he and "divers other families" were to settle. On the same date John Van Meter pf the province of NY., obtained a like grant. This was the land subsequently sold Joost Hite who settled it. These transactions are the cause of Isaac’s subsequent settlement in the South Branch Valley though it was not until 1744 that the actual migration of himself and family took place. He built and resided at Fort Pleasant, Old Fields where he was killed and scalped by the Indians in 1757. His will dated February 15, 1754 was filed December 14, 1757, with the county clerk of Hampshire Co. The residence being then in that county and subsequently embraced in Hardy when that county was erected. His family consisted of seven children I. Henry Van Meter who married March 7, 1741, at the First Presbyterian church Philadelphia, Rebecca du Bois daughter of Isaac and Rachel (his cousin) du Bois (one of their sons Joseph who served in the 8^th Va., Infantry married, Mary daughter of Joseph Hannah (McColloch) Inskeep. II. Sarah Van Meter baptized February 23, 1722, married January 27, 1741-2 John Richman. They had three children, Rebekah born 1743, Isaac born 1745, Abraham born 1749. III. Rebecca Van Meter who married Abraham Hite son of Jost Hite. IV. Garret Van Meter, who died 1788, having married April 3, 1757 Ann Sibley Markee widow of John Sibley. They had seven children: Isaac B. 10-12-1757 D. 12-13-1837, married 6-27 1780, Elizabeth Inskeep daughter of Joseph and Hannah (McColloch) Inskeep; Henry a second Henry, David, who died as infants; Jacob B. 5-19 1764 D. 10-15 1825 married 1-1-1791, Tabitha sister of Elizabeth Inskeep; Abraham who died an infant; and Ann B. 4-15-1767 D. about 1825, married 8-2-1785 Abel Seymour. V. Jacob Van Meter of whom nothing definite is known. VI. Catherine Van Meter who married George McColloch and died presumably without issue between 1757 and 1768. VII. Hilita Van Meter of whom nothing is known.

Published in Moorefield Examiner, January 12, 1905.

Thomas Jefferson Letter to Garret Van Meter

I am sorry such a Spirit of Disobedience has shewn itself in your County; it must be subdued. Laws made by common Consent must not be trampled on by Individuals. It is very much the Interest of the good to force the unworthy into their due Share of Contributions to the Public Support, otherwise the burthen on them will become oppressive indeed. We have no power by the law of raising Cavalry in the Counties generally, but on some similar Occasions we have recommended to the County Lieutenants, who have the power of forming their Militia Companies as they please, to form into one Company such Individuals of their Militia as will engage to mount and equip themselves and to serve as mounted Infantry and we give Commissions to the Officers in the ordinary Stile. These may be used as effectually as Cavalry, and men on horseback have been found the most certain Instrument of public punishment. Their best way too perhaps is not to go against the mutineers when embodied which would bring on perhaps an open Rebellion or Bloodshed most certainly, but when they shall have dispersed to go and take them out of their Beds, singly and without Noise, or if they be not found the first time to go again and again so that they may never be able to remain in quiet at home. This is what I must recommend to you and therefore furnish the Bearers with the Commissions as you desire. If you find this Service considerable you will of Course give the Individuals Credit for it as a Tour of Duty.

Civil War Story about Bettie VanMetre

The Woman Who Would Not Tell By Janice Keyser Lester On the shelf in my kitchen sits a small, antique coffee-grinder that came from an old house in Virginia. A drawer in its base contains a scrap of paper covered with faded writing. The writing is faded because the ink was made of berry juice. And the paper is flimsy because it was folded small enough to fit inside a brass button. Part of the message is still legible. Dated September 14, 1864, it begins: "Dear Bettie, I have a chance to send you a note by concealing it from the Yankees…." It’s a prison-camp letter from a captured Confederate officer to his wife in Virginia, smuggled out by a paroled soldier, delivered to a blue-eyed 20-year-old woman living all alone, except for two former slaves, in the war-torn Shenandoah Valley. The name of the girl was Bettie Van Metre, and during the next two months she was to be the principal figure in one of the most dramatic and little-known episodes of the Civil War. I know the story because I heard it many times from Bettie herself. She was my favorite great-aunt, and she lived to be over 80. Whenever my family visited Aunt Bettie in the old house in Berryville, Va., I would pester her to tell me the story. I can see myself now, sitting on a hassock, waiting for her to begin, "I never did hate the Yankees. All I hated was the war…." Bettie Van Metre had good reason to hate war. One of her brothers was killed at Gettysburg, another taken prisoner. Then her husband, James, was captured, and his smuggled letter spoke of illness, harsh treatment, semi-starvation. She did not even know where he was: that portion of his message was illegible. For more than three years the tide of battle had swept back and forth across the lovely Shenandoah Valley until it was a wasteland of pillaged homesteads and abandoned farms. Gray and Blue forces still clashed fiercely, and roving bands of deserters and guerrillas robbed and murdered. Bettie kept busy during part of each day working with the Berryville Sewing and Nursing Corps, and the elderly Negro couple, "Uncle Dick" Runner and his wife Jennie, were helpful and kind. But the nights were endless. One sultry day in late September a Federal hospital column halted at a farmhouse about a mile from the Van Metre home. From one of the horse-drawn ambulances, a figure on a bloodstained stretcher was lowered to the ground. Three days earlier, in a savage skirmish preceding the battle of Opequon Creek, a Rebel shell had burst beside 30-year-old Lt. Henry Bedell, Company D, 11th Vermont Volunteers. One iron fragment smashed into his right hand; another tore his left leg so hideously that it had to be amputated at the thigh. When it became necessary to evacuate the wounded to Harpers Ferry, the doctors knew that Bedell would not survive the agonizing 20-mile ride. To spare him unnecessary suffering, they decided to leave him, attended by a single orderly, at the farmhouse. Abandoned by its owners, the place was now inhabited by a slatternly woman. She accepted without comment the greenbacks offered to pay for his shelter. He was a strong man, this Vermonter, and a brave one. Before the doctors left, he asked to dictate a final letter to his wife in Westfield, VT. He also requested that his rifle, a Henry repeater, be placed beside him. If any Confederates came and he was conscious, he would use it. He was hidden in an attic room. Then the hospital train moved on. For two days the woman and the orderly drank and caroused. Despite the soldier’s groans, they never went near him. On the third day, tired of waiting for Bedell to die, they left. But Uncle Dick Runner had seen the wounded man carried into the farmhouse. When the woman and the orderly left, the old Negro ran to summon aid at the Van Metre farm. Whenever Aunt Bettie told about her first sight of the gaunt bearded man in the stained blue uniform lying in the attic, her nostrils flared. "It was like walking into a nightmare: those awful bandages, that dreadful smell. That’s what war is really like, child: no bugles, no banners. Just pain and filth, futility and death." To Bettie Van Metre this man was not an enemy; he was a suffering human being. She gave him water and tried to cleanse his dreadful wounds. Then she went out into the cool air and leaned against the house and tried not to be sick. She knew that she should report the presence of a Union officer to the Confederate authorities. But she also knew that she would not do it. "I kept wondering if he had a wife somewhere, waiting, and hoping, and not knowing – just as I was. It seemed to me that the only thing that mattered was to get her husband back to her." Slowly, patiently, skillfully, James Van Metre’s wife fanned the spark of life that flickered in Henry Bedell. Three times each day she climbed to the attic room with food as she could find. Of drugs and medicines she had almost none, and she was not willing to take any from the meager supplies at the Confederate hospital. But now there was no turning back. Bedell told her that he would not be taken alive. "I can still shoot," he said grimly, "with my left hand." As his strength returned, Bedell told Bettie about his wife and children in Westfield, and listened as she told him about her brothers and about James. "I knew his wife must be praying for him," Aunt Bettie would say, "just as I was praying for James. It was strange how close I felt to her, at times." The October nights in the valley grew cold. The infection in Bedell’s wounds flared up and, in the unheated house, there was increasing risk that he might die of pneumonia. Bettie decided to take him to her own farmhouse. With Uncle Dick and Jennie helping, she moved him at night, to a bed in a hidden loft above the warm kitchen. But the exertion and exposure were too much for the weakened man. By morning he had a high fever. Toward afternoon he was delirious. By nightfall Bettie knew that she must summon help or he would die. After praying for guidance, she wrote a note to her longtime friend and family physician, Dr. Graham Osborne. Dr. Osborne wasted no time in moral judgements. He examined Bedell, then shook his head. There was little hope unless proper medication could be obtained, and for the people of the Confederacy such medication had ceased to exist. "All right, then," Bettie said. "I’ll get it from the Yankees at Harpers Ferry!" The doctor told her she was mad. The Union headquarters were almost 20 miles away. Even if she reached them, the Yankees would never believe her incredible story. "I’ll take proof," Bettie said. In the loft where Bedell lay she found a bloodstained document with the official War Department seal. "This is a record of his last promotion," she said. "When I show it, they’ll have to believe me." She made the doctor write out a list of the medical items he needed, and early the next morning she was on the road. For five hours she drove, stopping only to rest her horse. Once a ragged figure rose out of a ditch and tried to seize the mare’s bridle. Bettie lashed at him with her whip; the frightened animal reared and bolted, and the man did not pursue. The sun was almost down when she finally stood, shaking with fatigue, before the commanding Federal officer. Gen. John D. Stevenson listened with steely skepticism. "Madam," he said, "Bedell’s death was reported by his orderly." "He’s alive," Bettie insisted. "But he won’t be much longer unless he has the medicines on that list." The general hesitated. "Well," he said finally, "I’m not going to risk the lives of a patrol just to find out. See that Mrs. Van Metre gets the supplies,." He told an aide. He brushed aside Bettie’s thanks. "You’re a brave woman," he said. "Whether you’re telling the truth or not." With the medicines that Bettie carried to Berryville, Dr. Osborne brought Bedell through the crisis. Ten days later Bedell was hobbling on a pair of crude crutches that Uncle Dick had made for him. But by now rumors of a blue-clad stranger in the Van Metre home were spreading. The talk reached Dr. Osborne, and on his next visit he put it bluntly: "Bettie, you’re in a very dangerous position." Bedell agreed. "I can’t continue to put you in jeopardy," he said. "I’m strong enough to travel now. And I think I have a plan." The plan involved striking a bargain with one of Bettie’s neighbors, a Mr. Sam. The crusty old farmer was bemoaning the loss of some mules that he claimed had been stolen by Union troopers. Mr. Sam had a wagon and one remaining mule. If the farmer would agree to deliver Bedell to Union headquarters at Harpers Ferry, he might be able to exchange a crippled Yankee officer for the missing Confederate mules. Reluctantly, the old man allowed himself to be persuaded. Then Bedell confided to Bettie the rest of his plan: she was to go with him. "The war is almost over," he said. "I might be able to help you find you husband." Bettie hesitated, but finally agreed. Uncle Dick devised a double harness that enabled them to hitch Bettie’s mare alongside Mr. Sam’s remaining mule. Bedell lay down in an old crate filled with hay, his rife and crutches beside him. It was a long, slow journey that almost ended in disaster. Only an hour from the Union lines, two horsemen suddenly appeared. One pointed a pistol, demanding money. The other pulled Mr. Sam from the wagon. As Bettie sat paralyzed, a rifle shot cracked out so close behind her that she felt the muzzle blast. The guerrilla on horseback spun to the ground. A second shot sent the other man sprawling. Bettie watched Bedell lower the rifle and brush the wisps of hay out of his hair. "Let’s keep moving," he said. At the picket line, the soldiers stared in amazement at the old farmer and exhausted girl. They were further startled when the Union officer with the maimed hand and missing leg rose from his hay-filled box. "All I remember," Aunt Bettie used to say, "was Henry’s face when he saw his own flag and saluted it with his bandaged hand." Bedell was sent to Washington. There he told his story to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who immediately wrote a letter of thanks to Bettie and signed an order for James’s release. Special rail transportation was furnished to help Bettie search for her husband. It was arranged for Bedell to accompany her. The search was far from easy. Records showed that a James Van Metre had been sent to a prison camp in Ohio, but when the ragged files of thin, dispirited men were paraded before Bettie, James was not there. A second prison was checked, with the same result. Bettie fought back a chilling fear that her husband was dead. Then at Fort Delaware, near the end of the line, a tall man with sunken eyes in an emaciated face broke the files and stumbled into Bettie’s arms. Bettie held him, tears streaming down her face. And Henry Bedell, standing by on his crutches, wept, too. The three of them returned by steamer to Washington, thence by rail to Bedell’s home in Vermont. Between the two families, there grew a deep and lasting friendship. Later, when the Bedells had two more children, they named them after their Southern friends. Soon after the war, the Van Metres took the Bedells to their Virginia home as guests. Fifty years later, the Bedells and the Van Metres were still friends. That year the Vermont State Legislature passed a resolution thanking Bettie for her act of mercy. And on Lincoln’s Birthday, 1915, Gov. Charles Winslow Gates of Vermont presided at a banquet at Westfield in Bettie’s honor and presented her with a parchment scroll. I can still see the flash of Bettie’s blue eyes, still hear her laugh. And sometimes, when the present-day news seems almost unbelievable, I go to the old coffee-grinder and take out the flimsy letter that James wrote her more than a century ago. It reminds me that, no matter how shadowed things may seem, love is stronger than fear, and that acts of kindness often are rewarded in most unexpected ways. Published in "Readers Digest", December 1968.