Autobiography of David Meade, II
David Meade, the subject of this record, having resided at Maycox, in Prince
George County, for twenty-two years, removed in the summer of 1796 to the now
State of Kentucky, having landed with a numerous family from boats at
Limestown, now Maysville, on the morning of the 4th of July, and permanently
settled on a small tract of land previously purchased by his eldest son,
David, at the head spring of Jessamine Creek, a lateral branch of the Kentucky
River, then Fayette (now Jessamine) County, being a portion of the former
taken from it in 1797. The name of Jessamine was derived from that of an
unfortunate girl, the daughter of a Scotch-man, a staymaker in the then
capital of Virginia, who became a patentee of a tract of land lying at the
head of a lateral branch of the Kentucky, having on it a copious spring, which
from his daughterÂ’s name he called Jessamine Spring, which gave name to the
creek from which the county was named. Such was the origin of the name of the
fertile county of Jessamine the unfortune Jesse (or Jessamine) Douglas whom
remorse and a laudable sense of shame for having yielded to the importunities
of her lover, prompted to commit suicide.
At the precise period of recording this, he, David Meade, has resided in
tranquil retirement thirty years with a numerous household, at his seat of
Chaumiere des Prairies, where his days have been engaged in the wholesome and
agreeable, and, he trusts, innocent occupation of the improvement of his
grounds after the mode of horticulture, calculated more to please the eye,
than to result in the acquirement of what the world generally deems the more
substantial goods of life.
Thus ends the Autobiography of David Meade II. The story of David Meade II's
life in Virginia and Kentucky, as well as observations of some of our founding
fathers comprises about half of the book, edited by Henry Peet in 1883,
titled, "The Chaumiere Papers, Containing Matters of Interest to the
Descendants of David Meade, of Nansemond County, VA." My fifth great-
grandfather was David Meade II, who went from British subject to American
citizen during his lifetime.