• General Notes

  "My father, David Meade, some time before his marriage, made an acquaintance
  with the family of Sir Richard Everard, who resided at Edenton, the then seat
  of government of North Carolina, where an attachment, perfectly romantic, was
  mutually formed between my father and the eldest daughter of Sir Richard.
  
  'A century ago, Hampton Roads was the receptacle of nearly all the ships which
  loaded within the water of Chesapeake Bay, and the chief part of the trade
  from North Carolina with England was through Hampton Roads.  Having
  relinquished his government, Sir Richard Everard and his lady and two
  daughters became the guests of my grandfather, Meade, he living convenient to
  Hampton Roads, where the ship lay in which they had taken their passage to
  England.  From some cause or other, the ship was delayed longer than was
  expected, which delay proved favorable to my father's views, who had but
  little expectation of obtaining the parent's consent to his marriage with
  their daughter in Virginia, and he was preparing to accompany the family to
  England, when the earnest entreaties of his father, who was distressed at the
  thought of being so long and so widely separated from his only son, prevailed
  upon the parents of my mother to consent to an immediate marriage.  They, with
  the most entire confidence in his honor and affection, put their daughter
  under the protection of ther enraptured lover.  No pair ever enjoyed more
  happiness in the hymeneal state than they did.  They were both of them very
  young when they came together, and with very little experience in mankind,
  brought up under the eyes of fond and virtuous parents.
  
  'My father was of handsome person and fine stature.  He lived a monotonous and
  tranquil life.  The purity of his heart corresponded with the symmetry of his
  person.  He was the most affectionate of husbands, the tenderest of parents,
  and the best of masters, and an ingenuous and sincere friend.  Brought up in
  his father's house, with such a pattern, he could not be but just, generous
  and hospitable.  If it were thought to detract anything from his merits, it
  would not be here recorded that he had never studied human nature.  Ever
  disposed to believe men to be what they should be, if he detected an
  individual deviating from strict probity, he considered him a monster.  Venial
  faults excited in  him astonishment, and crime horror.  In fine, he was a
  truly virtuous man, but no philosopher.  He deceased in the year 1757, being
  then in his 47th year.  ' "
  
  This may be a proper place here in the family record to notice the other
  brothers of David Meade, the primary subject of it.  Everard Meade, the third
  son of his father, as well as the two older, spent a considerable part of his
  minority at school in England, and returned to Virginia about the year 1764.
  When not quite eighteen years of age he clandestinely formed a hymeneal
  connection with Mary Thornton, abou this own age, the daughter of a gentleman
  who was a member of a numerous and very respectable family, by which wife he
  had tow sons and a daughter, who died before him.  He afterwards married the
  widow of Benjamin Ward, by who he had two sons, and deceased.  His widow is
  yet living, January 7, 1820.  Andrew the fourth brother, died, leaving a
  widow, a most estimable woman, the daughter of Buckner Stith of Brownswick,
  with two sons and three daughters.  John, the fifth son, deceased a minor,
  being about seventeen years old, 1772. 
  
  

Details of David's family with Susanna Everard