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Surnames: Peek, Veal, Wallace, Mathews, Scott,
Classification: Biography
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Si.2ADE/270
Message Board Post:
This book has no cover, and no index, and no author. I bought it on Ebay; it just has the
insides, but it is full of Indiana biographies. I am not researching this family, just
thought I would share. I do not know anymore about these families or these surnames. NOTE:
I don’t know if there is any additional mention of this family in the book, it has no
index. I do not want to sell this book. I am typing the biographies from it.
Typed by Lora Radiches:
Surnames in this biography are: Peek, Veal, Wallace, Mathews, Scott,
JOHN M. Peek. The thriving and fertile agricultural country of which Daviess County
is a part possesses its full quota of men who after many years of tilling the soil have
stepped aside from the path of labor to allow to pass the younger generation with
its high hopes and ambitions. In this class of retired citizens is found John M.
Peek, who has spent his entire life within the boundaries of Daviess County, and who is
still the owner of a large and valuable tract of farming land, although he is now living
quietly at Washington, where he is surrounded by a wide circle of appreciative friends who
remember his long and honorable civilian career as well as his valiant services as a
soldier of the Union during the dark days of the war between the states. John M. Peek was
born April 14, 1845, on the family farm in Daviess County, four and a half miles South of
Washington, then a frontier village, and is a son of Levi and Sarah (Veal) Peek. His
grandfather !
was Hon. Kaiser Peek, a native of South Carolina, who was a pioneer of Indiana, a
substantial agriculturist, and a member of the second Legislature at Indianapolis after
the capital had been moved from Corydon. Levi Peek was born near Shoals, Martin County,
whence he moved to Daviess County, and like his father, was a prominent citizen and active
farmer and stock raiser. He served as justice of peace in the middle thirties. He married
Sarah Veal of Daviess County. Veal Creek and Veal Township in Daviess County were named in
honor of James C. Veal, senior, a Revolutionary soldier who came to Daviess County before
statehood, about 1806. James C. Veal, Sr., the Revolutionary soldier, was the
grandfather of Mrs. Peek. James C. Veal, Jr., taught the first school established in
Daviess County. To Levi and Sarah (Veal) Peek there were born four children: Mary, Harvey
and Mariah, all of whom are deceased; and John M. Harvey was killed in the Vicksburg
campaign during the w!
ar between the states. John M. Peek acquired his education in the public schools
of Veal Township, Daviess County, and his boyhood was spent on the home farm. He was still
a youth at the outbreak of the War Between the States, but August 17, 1862, when only
seventeen years of age, enlisted in the Sixty-fifth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer
Infantry, with which he served bravely under Captains Childs and Mulholland until
the close of the great struggle and received his honorable discharge July 9, 1865.
In April, 1930, the Washington Democrat published three stories, in which Mr. Peek related
his experiences while serving in the Union Army. They were of deep interest and widely
read. Returning home he resumed the duties of the civilian, subsequently acquiring land of
his own, and developed a fertile and valuable farm, to the successful operation of which
he gave ninny years of his life. About forty-five years ago he bought out the other heirs
of th!
e Peek farm, and today this farm is part of his holdings. His father settled this farm in
1883. As noted, he is now living in comfortable retirement at Washington, where he has
much real estate, in addition to his farming interests. Mr. Peek is one of the greatly
respected men of his community and one who can be relied upon to support all worthy civic
measures. He has always been a supporter of the candidates and principles of the
Republican Party, and for many years has been a consistent member of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. He also belongs to the Grand Army of the Republic, U. S. Grant Post No.
72, Department of Indiana, and has served as chaplain for the past twenty-five years. He
has attended many of that patriotic organizations encampments and campfires. On September
18, 1883, Mr. Peek was united in marriage with Miss Ella Chapman daughter of James and
Nancy Matilda (Wallace) Chapman, and a descendant of an old and honored pioneer family of
agricultu!
rists of Daviess County. Three brothers of Mrs. Peek, John B., William G. and
Albert E., all now deceased, served as union soldiers during the war between the North and
the South. To Mr. and Mrs. Peek there have been born the following children: Mary the wife
of Fenton Mathews, of Pontiac, Michigan, who have had three children, John F., living and
two deceased, Richard and William; Joseph Harold, of West Palm Beach, Florida, who is not
married; Richard Thompson, engaged in the automobile business as a dealer at Washington,
Indiana, who married Ethel Scott, and has no children; Louise, the wife of Mark Richard,
of Lorain, Ohio, who has no children; and one child who died in infancy.