TIME LINE HISTORY OF FRANKFORT FISHING REEL MAKERS 1808-1865

• 1808      Jonathan Fleming Meek is born in Albemarle County,
               Virginia to Silvanus and Martha Meek. In 1812, the Meek
               family move to Danville, KY.
• 1816,     September 15    Benjamin F. Meek is born in Danville, KY.
• 1821,     July 1    Benjamin Cave Milam is born to John and Lucy
              Bradley Milam.
• 1822     James L. Sage is born in Hartford, Connecticut.
• 1830     Jonathan F. Meek moves to Frankfort, KY and establishes a
              jewelry store on Main Street.
• 1830/31 Benjamin Meek becomes apprenticed to Thomas Robinson
              Jamison Ayres, a silversmith in Danville.
• 1834,    June 3    Clockmaker George William Gayle is born in King
              & Queen County, Virginia. He would later serve as an
              apprentice in the J. F. and B. F. Meek shop for a brief period.
• 1834/1835    Benjamin Meek moves to Frankfort to work with his
              brother Jonathan. Newspaper ads say “reels since 1834”.
• 1835     Benjamin Cave Milam, age 14, serves as an apprentice in
              Beverley Noel’s jewelry shop at Frankfort. Coincidentally,
              Noel’s brother, Theodore, was also a reel maker. 
• 1835/36 The Meek brothers manufacture their first reel at the request
              of Liberty Hall’s Mason Brown. Brown probably had a Snyder
              reel.
• 1836    B. C. Milam visits Paris, KY and experiences George Snyder’s
             reels
• 1837    When Beverley Noel quits the reel business, B. C. Milam, age
             16, joins Jonathan and Benjamin Meek.
• 1842    Dr. James Henshall writes that James L. Sage was in Frankfort
             and repairing reels. Henshall (1836 -1925), author of “Book
             of the Black Bass,” and one of the Frankfort reel’s first
             historians, was an accomplished angler, sailor, hunter, and
             woodsman. He settled in Cynthiana, KY in the 1870s, later
             moving to Cincinnati, Ohio.
• 1846/1847  B. C. Milam is a Captain in the 10th Cavalry during the
             Mexican War
• 1849    B. C. Milam becomes a partner with the Meek brothers under
             the name J. F. Meek & Company                 
• 1850    James L. Sage is listed in the Franklin County Census -28
             years old, as a gunsmith. In that same census, listed with
             B. F. Meek, is Sage’s family, B. C. Milam and wife, and the
             apprentice George W. Gayle.
• 1852    The J. F. Meek Company fails and the partnership dissolution
             occurs in December. B. C. Milam carried on the reel-making
             until the company was dissolved.
• 1853    The Meek-Milam Fishing Reel Shop opens with Benjamin Meek
             assuming the jewelry responsibility and B. C. Milam, the reel
             making. They operated out of the same 222 West Main Street
             shop. The partnership lasts until 1859 at which time Meek
             sells his interest in the building to Dr. Samuel Ayres, the
             brother of the Danville mentor, Thomas R. J. Ayres.
• 1853    Jonathan Meek moves to Louisville and is employed by
             jeweler and silversmith William Kendrick. In 1873 he would
             return to reel making at Louisville.
• 1854,   May 1 A fire at the Meek-Milam shop results in a move to
             Lewis Street for a short time until they can return to the 222
             W. Main street shop.
• 1855    George W. Gayle begins managing the Worham P. Loomis
             jewelry business near Main and Ann Street. Gayle and his
             colleagues run the shop until Loomis dies in 1870.
• 1859,   July 12  John W. Milam, son of B. C. Milam, is born
• 1860    KY Governor Beriah Magoffin hires Benjamin Meek to strike
             gold medals for presentation to the surviving KY Volunteers
             who  participated in the Battle of Lake Erie (Put-In Bay) on
             September 10, 1813.
• 1865     James L. Sage is listed as the Superintendent of the
             Frankfort Gas Works in federal tax documents.