Born ‎ Jul 14, 1746, died ‎ Feb 9, 1805 at Frederick County, VA‎, 58 years
Elizabeth Randolph [RA.5.6] (- Jan. 1774 ) married Col. Richard Kidder Meade (14 July 1746 - 9 Feb. 1805), a son of David Meade and Susanna Everard. Their children died young and Mead married second Mary Randolph, the widow of William Randolph 10 December 1780.
Meade attended school at Harrow, England, and joined the Continental Army soon after his return, becoming aid-de-camp to General Washington, and was an original member of Society of the Cincinnati. He died in Frederick County.
aide to Gen'l Washington, in the Revolution.


R. K. Meade, after the death of his wife, and having no children, being
actuated by the most virtuous motives that ever actuated the mind of man,
engaged first as a volunteer in the service of his country and raised a
company, or rather was placed at the head of a company of Virginia ordered the
raising of two regiments, he was appointed captain in the Second Regiment
under Colonel Woodford, and in a very short time raised his company in the
winter of 1776-7. The Second Regiment was ordered to join the army, then on
the Delaware, in Jersey, under the command of the commander-in-chief. Before
it left Virginia, he received his appointment of aide-de-camp to General
Washington, and thereon without delay he repaired to headquarters. In his
station of aide he preformed all the active duties of it better, perhaps, than
any other of the General’s family. He was a handsome man, of athletic form
and constitution—from his early years was fond of manly and hardy sports; was
a good horseman, and was the best mounted aid-de-camp in the army. At the
battle of Monmouth he escaped being made prisoner by the fleetness of the
horse he rode, as he related to it himself. Being sent with orders to Major
General Lee, when either going or returning, he fell in with a general officer
and his suite, and was so near to them as to be in gunshot. He was sensible
of the danger he was in, but confiding in the powers of his horse, he soon
found himself out of their reach; but having a swamp to cross, his horse got
so immersed in it as not to be able to extricate himself from captivity; he
found himself under the necessity of dismounting, and abandoning the horse,
which relieved from so great a load, with great exertion plunged out and
fortunately recovered, was instantly remounted. Audbury, a British officer of
the Saratoga Convention troops, in a history of some campaigns of that war,
printed in two volumes octavo, narrated the above adventure to this effect:
That the General and suite which R. K. Meade was so near being taken by, was
no less a person than Sir Harry Clinton, the British commander-in-chief and
his suite; that an officer in it desired the General to permit him to shoot at
the American, which, to Sir Harry’s immortal credit, was generously, nobly and
gloriously refused. The events of the Revolutionary War of North America are
well recorded by different historians. From these histories, it does not
appear that the aide-de-camp, Captain Meade, was in any way distinguished from
his associate aides. It will not be to his discredit to have it remembered
that he was particularly intimate with and had a friendship for General
Alexander Hamilton, who, as a member of General Washington’s military family,
in the quality of aide-de-camp, entering the service when he was scarcely out
of his majority, continued tha that station until just before the siege of
Little York, in Virginia. He there performed not only the humble duties of
his office of aide-de-camp, but the more important one of counselor. His
fame, however, was founded more, and no doubt properly, upon the share he had
in the administration of the civil government of the United States after its
independence was acknowledged by the peace of Paris. More credit was due to
him probably for the share he had in the conduct of the war than was known to
the American public or the word in general. It was been said that Hamilton
had withdrawn from the General’s family before the capture of Earl Cornwallis,
at York. It was presumed, upon some authority not to be despised, the he
joined the French and American armies before the siege of that place not in
the best of humor with the General. He nevertheless was there appointed to
some honorable command, and it is a well-known historical fact that he was at
the head of the American party which stormed and carried one of the British
redoubts, while a French party, with more difficulty and some loss, carried
another. If any inference was at this time drawn from the circumstance of
Hamilton’s going to York without any commission and rather a malcontent, and
his appointment to a position of importance in any manner unfavorable to the
General, it was, no doubt by the very disaffected, who were not disposed to
join the grateful multitude in its enthusiastic admiration and almost
adoration of General Washington who became almost unaccountably popular, with
little of that affability, address, or art which is generally considered
essential to make one a popular hero. He was brave and prudent and active of
body, but without one great essential in an accomplished commander, namely,
decision; nor was he recommended by much experience. He was an honest
statesman, though as chief magistrate, deficient in personal suavity and
address. He had sound judgment, and was scarcely rivaled by any one in his
conduct of private affairs. Without ambition, and probably actuated by a
sincere desire to promote the public weal, his powers of mind were not doubt
ever at their utmost stretch to attain his end. He seems to have been
ordained by heaven to achieve great things in arms without great military
talents, without great native genius, without classical learning, and with but
little knowledge of the sciences. He sustained the State he had freed, by his
civil administration. Without impertinently and maliciously prying into every
recess to detect some venial frailty incident to human nature, as the
slanderous adversaries of Mr. Jefferson have, to their shame, done it may be
said of General Washington that his life and manners were correct and his
morals irreproachable, to judge ordinarily form his general deportment. He
was distinguished among the gentry of Virginia for punctuality in all his
pecuniary engagements; was of acknowledged probity and honor, to which may be
added that he was pre-eminently discreet in the management of his private
affairs, at all seasons, not only in times of calm, but when his own as well
as the public interests were in jeopardy. Of a saturnine temperament, he was
reserved and austere, and better endowed by nature and habit for an Eastern
monarch, than a republican general.

He was as exempt from the great vices and minor merit as a majority of the
frail descendants of our first parents; but, at the same time, it must be
admitted that he was a man of sterling virtues. It may be objected, perhaps,
that the person who guides the registry pen of this family record, writes
under the influence of prejudice, or some base passion, a suspicion to which
all those who dare to attempt to stem any popular torrent of error and
credulity will be subjected; but it is to be noted that these pages are not
intended and never will be exposed to public inspection, and intended only for
the amusement and, peradventure, the edification of the house of Meade (which
has no pretension to celebrity, but so far from it has been sunk into
obscurity), but more particularly the progeny of the subject of this brief
biography. The writer indignantly disclaims any affinity to the spirit of
detraction, but he dares to record what he believes upon sufficient grounds to
be the truth, although it should, by gaining credit within a very limited
circle, and there, in opinion, tarnish the romantic luster with which a name
has been varnished by popular belief. He can have no motive whatever for
detracting from the good qualities and accomplishments which have been
attributed to General Washington. He surely has not in the foregoing pages
betrayed any disposition to conceal them. He could not possibly envy his high
fame, for he was conscious that his own powers of mind and very humble
acquirements were of so mean a grade as to render emulation folly in the
extreme. He was moreover personally acquainted with him at least a dozen
years before the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, and not less so with
the greater part of the worthies who representing Virginia associated with him
in the first and subsequent sessions of Congress, of which number were the
venerable Col. Richard Bland, Mr. P. Randolph, then Attorney General, and
first president of Congress, Mr. Wythe, and Mr. Jefferson; with these,
although much the junior, except of the last, and may others of distinction,
he had lived many years in a reciprocation of fellowship and equality, except
in years, talents and in some cases, of fortune, and in some, of virtue. He
is so much of a republican and philosopher, as to claim no political or
physical superiority, or to acknowledge his inferiority on account of power or
pageantry. He detests envy and detraction, but loves truth. He rejects the
policy of encouraging false estimates of character and events, by giving them
coloring and varnish, not, perhaps, out of nature, but contrary to fact, and
altogether inapplicable to the subject. Such a course is useless, improper,
and calculated to generate doubt, and absolutely to destroy the confidence
which we ought to have in the verity of history and biography, which is
necessary to render it greatly useful to posterity, by mending their manners
and morals, and rendering mankind happier through the experience of past
times. Yet it was thought necessary during the progress of the Revolutionary
War, to the success of it, as indeed there was some reason for believing it
was, that men should appear to have embraced the popular and romantic
sentiment that Heaven had given Washington as a precious, inestimable boon to
America, a man endowed with all the attributes of the hero, preordaining him
for the savior of his country. Surely no true patriot would, during the
continuance of the war, whatever might have been his real creed, have been so
imprudent as publicly to have controverted the popular sentiment then, but
since the great object of the war has been fully attained, and the whole
generation by which it was achieved nearly passed away, very few individuals
who were agents in the stupendous undertaking now surviving, the obligation
has long ceased to restrain a full expression of sentiment upon the character
of the chief of those agents. It is, perhaps, a duty we owe to posterity, to
contribute our mite toward elucidating facts which have occurred in our own
time and the observed traits in the characters of famous contemporaries;
private memoirs are generally more faithful records than history and
biographies sanctioned by printing presses and public approbation. But,
returning to R. K. Meade, a subject more interesting to the writer. The
history of R. K. Meade’s participation in the Revolutionary War involved an
historical fact, which is probably not to be found in any of the histories of
that war, and exhibits the character of Sir H. Clinton in colors variant from
those in which he was painted by H. Lee, in his memoirs, and in which he was
generally viewed by the public. During the suspension of Major Andre’s fate,
in the interval between his capture and execution, frequent letters were
exchanged between the two commanders- in-chief , upon the subject of that
accomplished officer’s case.

At this time the American army was occupying different encampments in Jersey,
not remote from the city of New York, where were the chief British forces
under the commander-in-chief. The American General, watching with more than
ordinary solicitude the movements at New York, as an expedition was
apprehended from thence up the North River against West Point, and it was of
the highest importance that General Washington should receive correct
information of the destination oof the armament then preparing in New York,
also the moment it should sail. In this state of things at the American camp,
the unfortunate Andre then had his trial and condemnation as a spy, and R. K.
Meade was sent with a flag and a letter directed to Sir Henry Clinton,
commander-in-chief of the British army in New York. A blunt, ingenuous,
honest-hearted lieutenant of the navy was sent to receive the flag and the
letter. The lieutenant, upon receiving the letter and looking at the
superscription, pronounced without hesitation or reflection that it was not
directed properly for General Ralston, not Clinton, commanded in New York, by
which he disclosed a secret which General Washington considered of the utmost
importance to him. General Washington moved with the army, or a considerable
detachment, first up the North River, immediately after the return of the
conference of the British lieutenant of the navy and R. K. Meade. The honest
lieutenant, with much appearance of feeling, several times repeated his
inquiries of R. K. Meade, whether he thought they would hang Major Andre.
“And will they?” says he, repeating the question for the second or third time,
“hang that d---d fine fellow Andre?” And being reluctantly answered in the
affirmative, after a pause and as sigh: “Well then,” says he, “if you do hang
Andre, the world will know what a d—d blockhead Sir Harry Clinton is.”

R. K Meade left the army before the peace of Paris in 1783, and settled
permanently in Frederick County, State of Virginia, where he spent and
agricultural and very retired life, beloved by all who were acquainted with
him, esteemed and respected by his neighbors and every one that had ever heard
of his worth. The gout had been long his principal complaint, but had been
confined to his extremities; at length it assaulted his vitals, and on the---
day---of 1781, his decease deprived his family of the best husband, parent and
master that was ever born in this world. Three sons and four daughters were
the fruit of his second marriage with the widow of Wm. Randolph. Her maiden
name was Mary Grymes, the daughter of Benjamin Grymes. His first wife was
Elizabeth Randolph, daughter of the first Richard Randolph of Curles, in
Henrico County, and aunt to John Randolph, who has much distinguished himself
in public life.

Born ‎ 1731, died ‎ Dec 9, 1814‎, 82 or 83 years

Born ‎ Jul 29, 1744, died ‎ UNKNOWN‎
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 daughter’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.

Died ‎ UNKNOWN
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.

Died ‎ UNKNOWN

Born ‎± 1755, died ‎ UNKNOWN at omnfant‎