WILLIAMSBURG, VA - BIOGRAPHIES - Autobiography of David Meade, II
--------------¤¤¤¤¤¤--------------
Excerpt:
"Andrew Meade, my paternal grandfather, was an Irish Catholic, born in the
County of Kerry. Tradition says he left his native country, and went first to
London, then from thence came to New York, about the latter end of the 17th
century. He resided some years in New York, and then married Mary Latham, of
Quaker parentage, and some time after he removed to Virginia, and settled
permanently at the head of navigation on the Nansemond River.
'It has never been ascertained that he ever formally renounced the Catholic
faith, though he was many years a representative of his county in the House of
Burgesses, judge of the court, and senior colonel of the militia, (from his
holding these offices, we may certainly conclude that he had renounced it,
since test-oaths were required of such officers, and he was reputed to be an
honest man. In this I am further confirmed by the fact that the name of
Colonel Andrew Meade stands first on the list of vestrymen in the year 1743,
when the list I have commences. (Bishop Meade in "The Old Churches and
Families of Virginia," p. 292) executing these offices with advantage to his
adopted country and credit to himself, particularly the two former, for which
he was eminently qualified by education, which was scholastic and supposed to
have been received either in France or Flanders. He is said to have been a
large man, of great corporeal strength and rather hard featured, but of fine
form. In the year 1745, he deceased, leaving a character without a stain,
having had the glorious epithet connected with his name, long before he died,
of "The Honest."
'Anything further than is above related relative to the origin of my
grandfather is chiefly conjecture. When I was in England, I was much noticed
by the Irish, and very particularly by Lady Forbes and her son, the Hon. Mr.
Forbes, who after the death of his grandfather and father, became Earl of
Grenard. Counsellor Murphy, an Irish Catholic, a cousin of my father, who had
chambers in the Temple, but, being a Catholic, could not appear at the bar,
was umremitting in his attentions to me. I do not know from what source I
received the information, but I understood that his brother was in the French
service, and was high in command, under Colonel Lalley, in the East Indies
during the war of 1758, and that his uncle and patron was Colonel Meade, of
the Irish Brigade, and a man of much interest at the Court of Versailles. The
Clan William coat of arms is the same as ours. The honors of that house
originated in the reign of George II., and I believe, not very early in it.
'The many circumstances above noted, relative to Andrew Meade, of America,
being taken into consideration, it is not an improbable hypothesis, that being
unfriendly to William the Third's succession to the throne of England, he was
forced out of his native country, not unhappily for him, as it appears, as his
fortune in America was benign, nor has it been unfortunate for his progeny.
'He left a son, David, and a daughter, Priscilla, who married Wilson Curle, of
Hampton. David Meade, the son, inherited the paternal estate, and about the
year 1729 or 1730 married Susannah Everard, the older of two daughters of Sir
Richard Everard, Bart., of Broomfield Hall, Much Waltham Parish, in the County
of Essex, England, and Susannah Kidder, his wife, eldest daughter of Dr.
Richard Kidder, Bishop of Bath and Wells.