John (Joost Jan) Van Meter, II

1652 - 1706  (54 years)

• Name	John (Joost Jan) Van Meter
  Suffix	II
  Birth	1652	Gelderland, Holland
  Gender	Male
  Death	13 Jan 1706	NY
  Person ID	I299	Carl
  Last Modified	20 May 2012

  
  

  Father	Jan Joosten Van Meter, I,   b. Abt 1621, Thielerwaardt, Gelderland, Holland d. Long Island, NY
  Mother	Macyken Hendricksen,   b. 1624, Meppelen, Dreuth, Holland
  Family ID	F187	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Sarah Dubois,   c. 14 Sep 1664, Kingston, Ulster County, NY d. Salem County?, NJ
  Marriage	12 Dec 1682	New Paltz, Ulster County, NY
  Children	+ 1. John (Jan) Van Meter, III,   b. 14 Oct 1684   d. 1745, Winchester (Age 60 years)   2. Rebekka Van Meter,   b. 26 Apr 1686   d. 1755 (Age 68 years)   3. Lysbeth Van Meter,   b. 3 Mar 1689   4. Isaac Van Meter,   b. Abt 1692   5. Hendrix Van Meter,   b. 1 Sep 1695   d. Dec 1759, Salem, Salem County, NJ (Age 64 years)
  Family ID	F186	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	18 Jan 2014

  
  

• Notes

  "AMERICAN VAN METRE FAMILY" Smyth (Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, IN) "John Van Metre was the first white man to visit the country south of the Conhongaru (Potomac) (Cartmell's History of Frederick County Va., p. 12 et seq.) Mr. John Van Metre of New York gives an account of his accompanying the New York Delaware Indians on their raid against the Catawbas--They passed up the South Branch of the Potomac, and he afterward settled his boys there. (W. VA. Hist. Mag. III, p. 191, II, p. 17) At the mouth of the Antietam Creek, then in Prince George's County, MD, between 1730 and 1736, occurred the famous battle between the Catawbas and the Delawares by which the Catawbas secured the victory. This took place what is now the coke-yard of the Antietam Iron Works, three miles from Sharpsburg--where numerous skeletons and war implements have been found. (Scharff's "History of Western Maryland," II, p. 1204) John Van Metre, a Dutchman from the Hudson, was an Indian trader and pioneer explorer of the Shenandoah Valley, who spied out land about the time of Governor Spottswood's expedition in 1716. He traveled with a band of Delaware Indians at his own expense and traveled far southward and over unknown lands in the Wappatomaka Valley, on the South Branch River above the 'The Trough' as it was the finest land he had ever discovered. (MacKenzie's Col. Fam. of the U.S., VI) "SHEPHERD AND RELATED FAMILIES" by Frank Shepherd (1858-?) pub. 1943 (Indiana State Library, Indianapolis, IN) "Jooste Janse Van Meter was known as 'Van Meter the Indian Trader'. He and his father, it seems, were known to have made many expeditions into the Indian country for the purpose of barter with the Indians, even going as far as Central Virginia and over the mountains into the great Valley of the Shenandoah. It is claimed that he was the first white man to see this beautiful valley and was delighted with it. On his return told his sons to go there if they wanted good land, timber grass and well watered. It is known that John Van Meter passsed thru this valley as early as 1725 with a tribe of Delaware Indians on their way to the South Branch to fight the Catawbas. In this fight all the Delawares were killed except the two Indians who were with Van Meter." Birth, marriage and death dates taken from Ancestral file