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- Newspaper Obituary - Thursday, April 20, 1882 Pulaski Democrat - Pulaski, New York - Died - April 17th, 1882, Silas Harmon Meacham, aged 76 years. The deceased was born September 22, 1806, in the town of Sandy Creek, as the boundary of that township is now located. At the time of the birth of the deceased, it consisted a portion of Williamstown and Oneida County. Subsequently it was a part of Richland, Oswego County, but at present as already stated, the place of his birth lies in Sandy Creek. His father, Capt. J. Meacham, moved from Pawlet, Vermont, in the spring of 1806, with his wife, their conveyance being a sled with an ox team. This section of country was then an unbroken wilderness, with neither roads nor bridges. They were obliged to find their way by marked trees and to ford rivers or raft, as best they could. His father first located on the western part of what is now known as the farm of Col. Meacham, or the farm of the Agricultural Hall. It was there that the deceased was born in the autumn after the coming of his parents, and he was one of the first and as far known, the first child born in Sandy Creek or Richland. Captain Meacham moved into the village in 1811, built a one-story frame building on the ground recently occupied by the store of Mr. C. R. Jones, which he used both for this purposes of a store and dwelling house. He also built the first frame school house on the site now occupied by Mr. Charles Cross as a land office, which was subsequently removed to the locality now occupied by the Baptist Church. He afterward built a dwelling house on the former site of the Salmon River House, where he died in 1813, from injuries incurred in the war in 1811, at Sacketts Harbor. He went as Captain of the drafted militia of Richland and Mexico to serve in that war. After the death of his father, the deceased lived with his uncle, Deacon Simon Meacham, until he was 21 years of age. He then purchased some land went of his uncle's farm, and in March 1828, went to Pawlet, Vermont, and on the 19th of that month was married to Miss Elizabeth A., daughter of Joseph and Luceba Clark, of Pawlet. He remained there until September, when he returned and occupied his farm. Here he remained for six years and then selling his farm, he made another purchase of land, the farm now owned by heirs of Samuel Ransom. Some four or five years subsequent to this he removed to the house he occupied at the time of his decease, in this village. He engaged for a time in the tin business, and afterward for some 18 years in the book store, from which he was compelled at last to retire on account of illness and old age. The deceased united with the Congregational church in this village, in 1840, on public profession, and has ever been a most exemplary and devoted member of the same. A man of incorruptible integrity and of the strictest honesty in business, public spirited as a citizen, ever seeking to establish and maintain those organizations and influences that tend to the advancement of the intellectual culture and the morality of the community. All who had known him feel that a noble example of Christian fidelity is the heritage and memory he leaves behind him.
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1806 - 1882 (76 years)