Here Lizes the Body of Jacob VanMatr, Died in the 76 Yare of His Age, November the 16, 1798.  Elizabethtown City Cemetery, Hardin County, Kentucky.

Jacob Van Meter, Sr., was born March 17, 1723, in Somerset County, New Jersey.  He was an American Patriot, a soldier, a Kentucky Pioneer.  He was an Ensign in the 12th Virginia Regiment in the French and Indian Wars.  A Captain in the Illinois Regiment, Virginia State Troops in the American Revolution, and served on the committee of Observation at Pittsburgh.  Also, commanded a company in George Rogers Clark’s expeditions to take the Northwest Territory.

Jacob Van Meter, Sr., led a band of 100 persons from Virginia to Kentucky, down the Ohio River on 27 flat boats to Severns Valley in 1779-1780.  He built one of the first forts in Kentucky and helped establish the first permanent settlement between the Falls of the Ohio and Green River at Elizabethtown.

He was prominent in founding Hardin County and one of the organizers of Severns Valley Baptist Church in 1781, the oldest church west of the Allegheny Mountains.

Captain Jacob Van Meter Chapter D.A.R. was named in his honor.

Jacob and wife, Letitia Stroud, were married in Virginia in 1741.  Letitia lived from 1725 to 1799.  Their remains were moved from their family cemetery in 1965.