Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/318

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282
MEADE
MEADE

one of his father's sons that was associated with him in the array, his elder brother being in ill health, and his other brothers too young. He was the author of the pamphlet mentioned above and of various articles and letters that appeared in the daily press regarding his father's career.


MEADE, Richard Kidder, soldier, b. in Nan- seraond county, Va., 14 July, 1746 ; d. in Frederick (now Clarke) county, Va., in February, 1805. He was educated at Harrow in England, entered the Revolutionary array in 1775, soon after his return to Virginia, and was one of the twenty-four persons that on 24 June of that year daringly removed the arms from Lord Dunraore's house and placed them in the magazine in Williamsburg. In December, 1775, he commanded a company at the battle of Great Bridge, near Norfolk, Va., the first that was fought in that state. He was then received into Gren. Washington's military family as one of his aides, in which capacity, with the rank of colonel, he served throughout the war. He was with the commander-in-chief in all of his great battles, and used to say that Alexander Hamilton did the head- work of Washington's staff and he the riding, his black mare being well known to both armies. He superintended the execution of Maj. Andre. When Washington took leave of his aides at the close of the war he said to Col. Meade : " Friend Dick, you must go to your plantation ; you will make a good farmer, and an honest foreman of the grand jury." The latter part of his life was spent on a farm that he had bought in the valley of Virginia, which he called " Lucky Hill," since it had proved a profita- ble investment. About 1765 he married Elizabeth Randolph, aunt of John Randolph, of Roanoke. In 1780 he married for his second wife the widow of William Randolph, of Chatsworth. — His son, William, P. E. bishop, b. near Millwood, Frederick (now Clarke) co., Va., 11 Nov., 1789; d. in Rich- mond, Va., 14 March, 1862, was graduated at Princeton in 1808, studied theology, was made deacon, 24 Feb., 1811, and ordained priest, 10 Jan., 1814. He began his ministry in his native parish as assistant to Rev. Alexander Balmaine, but in the autumn of 1811 he became rector of Christ church, Al- exandria, Va., where he remained for eigh- teen months. He then returned to Millwood,

succeeding the rector

on the- death of the latter in 1821. Being in- dependent in his pecuniary circumstances. Mr. Meade officiated gratuitously for many years in his own parish and in the surrounding country. In 1813-14 he took an active part in procuring the election of Dr. Richard C. Moore, of New York, as the successor of Bishop James Madison in the episcopate of Virgina, and contributed ma- terially to the establishment of a diocesan theo- logical seminary at Alexandria, and various educa- tional and missionary societies connected with his denomination. In 1819 he went to Georgia as a commissioner to negotiate for the release of certain recaptured Africans who were about to be sold, and succeeded in his mission. On his journey he was active in establishing auxiliaries to the Ameri- can colonization society, and was similarly occu- pied during a subsequent trip through the middle and eastern states. He emancipated his own slaves, but the experiment proved so disastrous to the negroes that he ceased to advise its repetition by others. In 1826 he was recommended as assist- ant bishop of Pennsylvania, but, certain complica- tions having arisen, he caused his name to be with- drawn. In 1829, Bishop Moore having asked for an assistant. Dr. Meade was elected to that office, and was consecrated in Philadelphia on 19 Aug. In 1834, in addition to his episcopal labors, he un- dertook the pastoral charge of Christ church, Norfolk, one of the largest congregations in the diocese. Here he spent two years, which he after- ward characterized as " the happiest and most use- ful " of his life. Infirm health induced him to spend four months in Europe in 1841, and soon after his return he became bishop of the diocese through the death of Dr. Moore, on 11 Nov., 1841. The following year Dr. Meade was compelled in his turn to ask for the services of an assistant, and Rev. John Johns, D. D., was elected. Bishop Meade felt called upon to speak out plainly in opposition to the Tractarians of England, and published, at his own expense, an American edition of the works of his friend. Rev. William Goode, afterward dean of Ripon. In 1847 Dr. Meade and other bishops founded the Evangelical knowledge society during the sessions of the General convention in New York city, which enterprise he earnestly sustained with his pen, his purse, and his influence during the last fifteen years of his life. In 1861 Bishop Meade made many earnest efforts to save Virginia from the horrors of civil war. He steadfastly op- posed secession to the last, but yielded to the inevitable after his state had taken the step. When Bishop Meade decided to study for the ministry, his church in Virginia had so little vitality that no convention had been held between 1805 and 1811, and in the latter year a General convention at New Haven, Conn., reported that " the church in Virginia was so depressed that there was danger of her total ruin." When young Meade asked Chief- Justice Marshall to subscribe to a fund for the education of ministers, the latter remarked, after acceding to the request, that he feared it was unkind to tempt young men into a church which could never be revived. The gross worldliness and even open immorality of many of the Virginia clergy of that day, and the introduction of French infidelity during "the war of the Revolution, caused Dr. Meade to regard the development of the sub- jective in religion as of paramount iraportance. Beginning with a crusade against horse-racing, card-playing, and theatre-going by professing Christians, he lived to see the church of his choice rise from the dust and become a power in the land. " Raised up by God," said Bishop Elliott, of Georgia, " to leaven the church at a moment when that church was full of coldness and Erastianism, he felt that he must first school himself ere he could perform the work for which he had been anointed. . . . Fearless by nature, frank by temperament, straightforward because he always aimed at noble ends, commanding through character, he turned all the qualities which would have made him a hero, or a warrior, into the channels of the church." Dr. Meade received the degree of D. D. from William and Mary in 1827. Besides many occasional sermons, reports, tracts, pastoral letters and addresses, he published " Family Prayers " (Alexandria and Richmond, 1834, and other editions) ; " Pastoral Letters on the Duty of affording Religious Instruction to those in Bondage " (Alexandria, 1834 ; Richmond, 1854 ; New