WILLIAM J. MEREDITH, who has had a wide and varied experience in business affairs, is a well known resident of Staunton Township and has been a resident of Miami County Ohio, since 1872. He was born in Lafayette, Indiana, in October, 1843, and is a son of John L. Meredith, a well remembered business man and banker of Troy.

John L. Meredith was born in Warren County, Ohio, and passed his early boyhood there. When sixteen years old he went to the northern part of Indiana to take charge of an Indian station, and in 1840 located in Lafayette, Indiana. He later engaged in the banking business there and became the head of the banking establishment of Barbee, Brown & Company. About the year 1863, he moved to Troy, Ohio, and was instrumental in the reorganization of the old State Bank into the First National Bank of Troy. He was made cashier and served capably in that capacity until his death in 1880 at the age of sixty-one years. He was married in Indiana to a Miss Margaret Carr, who died one year afterward.

William J. Meredith was reared in his native city and attended Hanover College until his junior year, when he left that institution to enter the army. In 1863 he was appointed on the general staff of the commissary department, and served with credit until May 1865. At the close of the war he engaged in lumbering, on the Chippewa River in northern Wisconsin, and later lost everything by fire. Then he engaged in the retail boot and shoe business at Milwaukee, and after a time acted as treasurer for a company for the construction of a railroad in Kentucky. He moved west to Lincoln, Nebraska, and became assistant cashier of the First National Bank, a position he resigned to become secretary of the old Troy Wagon and Spring Works at Troy, Ohio, He was identified with that company a period of twenty-five years and was one of its largest stockholders. After the death of his father he bought the interests of the other three heirs in the farm in Staunton Township, and for a time had it farmed, but has disposed of most of it to good advantage.

In January, 1873, Mr. Meredith was united in marriage with Miss Louisa Coles, who died in 1905. One son was born to them, namely, John C., who conducts one of the largest music stores in Dayton. Politically, Mr. Meredith is a Republican, and takes a deep interest in the success of the principles of that party.