This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Eichinger, Meisenhelter, Welch Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Hi.2ADI/2581 Message Board Post: Biographical Record and Portrait Album of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, pg. 712 Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1888 JACOB EICHINGER, one of the representative men of Sheffield Township, and an honored and respected citizen, was born in York County, Pennsylvania, December 31, 1810. He grew to manhood in his native county, and was there married to MISS MARY MEISENHELTER, who was also born in York County, Pennsylvania, September 27, 1814, a daughter of JOHN and MARY MEISENHELTER. Four children were born to this union, as follows: REBECCA, died at her home in Illinois, leaving a husband and seven children; LYDIA ANN, at home with her parents; JOHN, a resident of Wabash Township, this county, and JACOB, who died in 1871. The three eldest children were natives of Pennsylvania, the youngest being born in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. MR. EICHINGER remained in his native county until thirty-one years of age, when he removed to Washington County, Maryland, locating near Hagerstown. Five years later he returned to the homestead in Pennsylvania, where he lived until coming to Tippecanoe County, Indiana, April 22, 1851. He then bought the farm which he now occupies, and here he has lived since coming to the county with the exception of four years when he resided on his other farm located on section 22 of the same township, the latter consisting of 240 acres of Tippecanoe County's best soil, well improved, underlaid with tile, and fine building improvements. His home farm contains eighty-seven acres, which is also well improved and under a high state of cultivation, the entire surroundings of the place showing the owner to be a man of care and thrift. Besides the two farms mentioned above he has forty acres of timber land elsewhere in Sheffield Township, owning altogether 367 acres. MR. EICHINGER has always been an industrious, hard-working man, and has become one of the most successful farmers of Sheffield Township. He is a liberal supporter of all enterprises tending to build up and advance the interests of his township and county, and none have done more in making improvements in his township than he. Both he and his wife are consistent members of the Lutheran church. In politics, like his father, he was formerly a Whig, but has been a Republican since the organization of that party. The EICHINGER family is of German descent, the grandfather of our subject, JOHN EICHINGER, having been a native of Germany, and on coming to America, settled in York County, Pennsylvania. The parents of our subject, JOHN and SUSAN (WELCH) EICHINGER, were both born in York County, Pennsylvania, and there the father lived until his death, which occurred in 1845, when about sixty-seven years of age. After the death of her husband, the mother went to Decatur, Illinois, where she lived with her daughter until her death. Ten children were born to the parents of our subject, six of whom still survive--SARAH, REBECCA, BETSEY, JACOB, FRED and MICHAEL.