i
36 UNION COUNTY PAST AND PRESENT  
l
l
acres of land which he bought at two dollars an acre. Another E
I " was Henry Floyd who died many years ago at the age of 102.  
Some time prior to 1847, Fital M. Garesche, a farmer, owned  
and resided on a farm in Union County, as is shown by an act l
I of legislature authorizing sale of the land by his widow.
Frederick Geiger, Jr., born in Maryland, is credited with being
the builder of the first steam gristmill in Union County. He came
to the county in 1841 and settled near the lake that carries his
name, acquiring title to much land in that vicinity, including i
the ground on which the Battle of Geiger’s Lake was fought. ‘
His father, Frederick, Sr., served as a colonel in the Indian wars _
of the Northwest, participating in the Battle of Tippecanoe, and
numbered among his friends Gen. William Henry Harrison and l
Daniel Boone.
John Samuel Geiger, son of Frederick, Jr., was born on a farm A
near Louisville in 1818 (see Biographical Sketches). {
Another member of this family was Oakley Leonard Geiger,  
born in 1856 near Geiger’s Lake, who received his medical degree
at the age of twenty—one. Dr. Geiger’s wife was Laura Bell Orr,
- whom he married in 1881.
The Givens family that finally settled in Union County were
of Scotch—Irish extraction, its forbears coming from Ireland to
America about 1738. There were several families in that group.  
Numerous members of the Givens families served in the Amer-  
ican Revolution, and several were given land grants in the wil- {
derness of Kentucky by Virginia. William Givens came to Fayette  
County in 1789, thence to Bourbon County in 1809, later to 1
Hopkins, and nnally to Union County. He was born in Virginia I
in 1762, and was married in 1789 to Rebecca Kenney. There were  
eleven children. several of whom settled in Union County. Elijah  
Lyle Givens, a son of William Givens, was born in 1803 and died K
in 1883. He marrftd Mary Gilium Waller, in 1829. The couple had  
six daughters and one son, Thomas Robert Givens, born in Union  
County in 1842. T.   Givens married Frances E. Williams in
1867, and they became the parents of two sons. Mr. Givens was K
the owner of many nne blooded horses, aniong them one named {
Button. said to have been undefeated in any county fair contest.
During the War between the Siates, guerillas stole Button; but {
after the war was over the horse was recovered in Livingston
` County. Mr. Givens owned 205 acres of land in Union County