DR. C. E. MECKSTROTH, a practicing physician at New Knoxville and one of the best known of the younger physicians of Auglaize county, was born just southeast of New Knoxville, in Washington township, January 30, 1885, and is a son of Herman H, and May (Bierbaum) Meckstroth, both of whom were born in that same township, members of pioneer families in that part of the county.
The late Herman H. Meckstroth, who for many years was well known throughout this region as a manufacturer of tile, was a son of William Meckstroth, a native of Germany, who had come up into this part of Ohio following his arrival in this country and in 1835 had entered from the Government title to a tract of land in section 30 of what in the next year came to be organized as Washington township to Allen county, and which in 1848 came to be a part of the new county of Auglaize. The town of New Knoxville, less than a mile north of his place of settlement, was not laid out until the next year (l836), four years after the Indians had left this region, and William Meckstroth thus became one of the real pioneers of the New Knoxville neighborhood, a helpful and influential factor in the creation there of an orderly and forward looking community, so that his memory ever will be kept green there so long as local records are preserved.
Herman H. Meckstroth was born on that pioneer farm and there grew to manhood. In 1868 he established a tile mill on that place just southeast of New Knoxville and continued to operate that plant for thirty-one years, or until 1899, when he sold the plant and moved onto a farm he had bought in the Botkins neighborhood, over the line in Shelby county, where he was engaged in farming until his retirement in 1919 and removal to New Knoxville, where his last days were spent, his death occurring in July, 1922. His wife had preceded him to the grave nearly fifteen years, her death had occurred in 1907. They were the parents of seven children, three of whom are living, the subject of this sketch having two brothers, the Rev. William L. Meckstroth and Dr. Henry L. Meckstroth.
The early schooling of Dr. C. E. Meckstroth was received in the New Knoxville schools. He was fourteen years of age when the family moved over into Shelby county, and after further schooling in the Shelby county schools he secured a license to teach school and was for five years thereafter engaged during the winters in teaching in the Shelby county schools. During this time he married. In the meantime also he had been devoting his attention to preparatory studies in medicine, and as an essential to entrance into college entered the high school at Wapakoneta and in two years completed the four-year course there and was graduated in 1910. Thus equipped by preparatory study, he then entered Medical Starling Ohio Med College at Columbus (now the medical department of the Ohio State University), and in 1914 was graduated from that institution. Upon receiving his diploma, Doctor Meckstroth opened an office for the practice of his profession at Botkins and was there engaged in the practice for ten months, at the end of which time he moved to New Knoxville, where he established his home and has ever since been engaged in practice. The Doctor is a member of the Ohio State Medical Society and of the Auglaize County Medical Society, and also is a fellow of the American Medical Association, in the deliberations of which several bodies he has long taken an earnest interest.
Dr. C. E. Meckstroth married Martha Howe, daughter of William and Sophia (Stolte) Howe, of Shelby county, and to this union four children have been born, three sons and a daughter, Paul, Ruth, Leslie and Norman. Doctor and Mrs. Meckstroth are members of the First Reformed church at New Knoxville. They have a pleasant home at New Knoxville and take an interested part in the general social and cultural activities of the community.