The Floating Opera by John Barth got its name from a showboat -- an imaginary one -- which floated on the tide, up and down the rivers in the tidewater areas of Chesapeake Bay. It had a flat deck where plays would be performed, so people could watch while enjoying picnics on the river banks. They could see a scene here and there as the boat floated past, but they would never see the whole story.
This is often the case with family history. We can see an isolated scene without knowing the whole story. Such is the case in the unusual feud between Thomas Mede and Sir Edward Don of Horsenden, Bucks.
The details of the story come from the Household Book of Sir Edward Don, a combination diary and account book. The first indication of the feud comes on July 14, 1527, when Sir Edward wrote that "John Deste, constable of Saunderton, did arrest Thomas Mede by a warrant of the peace out of chancery. The said constable should have brought him to me but he would not." In August, he wrote "John Deste did arrest Thomas Mede again and brought him to Mr. Cheney." In October of 1527, Sir Edward paid iiis iid "to Basset for commencing an action against Thomas Mede."
It is not clear what was the cause of the feud. In June 1527, Sir Edward wrote that "I did lose 2 signets (swans), one of 3 weeks old, also a tame heron with one wing broken, the which Thomas Mede's son did break 2 years past." And, in July, Sir Edward complained that "Thomas Mede's sheep did eat my peas."
Could a full-fledged feud develop because of peas?
Thomas Mede gave as good as he got, however. On July 30, 1527, Sir Edward complained that "Thomas Mede did stop my water so that it did not let my mill go its full course." And, in August 1527, he wrote that "Mr. Dormer's man called Butler to view the ditch that Thomas Mede did stop the water from my mill."
More than a year later, in January 1528, he wrote himself a memo "to look for the day of Thomas Mede's arrest by the constable and also for the day that he did stop the water from my mill."
But, in September 1529, Sir Edward paid a shilling "to Thomas Mede, carpenter, for working on the window in the wardrobe 2 days with 1 servant." And, in March 1534, he hired "Thomas Mede, carpenter, for 4 days for felling the poplar for the boat and for the making thereof xvi d and meat and drink."
Thomas Mede died in 1538, leaving five sons, some of whom continued to work for Sir Edward Don. For example, in April 1538, Sir Edward wrote "I covenanted with Edmund Mede, carpenter, for mending my chamber windows for the water works, and the orchard and bridge, and the milkhouse, and the window in the new parlor xs." In May 1549, "John Welshe departed from my gate and Robert Mede entered in his place: iiii nobles (l pound 6 shillings 8d) with his livery."
So, I can only conclude that it was a friendly feud, a bit such as Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon perpetrated upon each other as the two old neighbors in the motion picture "Grumpy Old Men".
Between Us ...
Lee Meade, Editor
I RECEIVED an award last month. I was named the 2007 Sportswriter of the Year by the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools.
Many of our readers know that in my real life I was a newspaper reporter. I worked for newspapers in Minnesota, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado and California. I retired in 2001 as managing editor of the Elk Grove Citizen, a twice-a-week publication in suburban Sacramento. But, I'm accustomed to being a busy sort of person, so retirement didn't last long.
I began my journalism career six decades ago as a student reporter for my hometown newspaper in Litchfield, Minn. Reporting sports took me around the world and gave me the opportunity to enjoy strawberries and cream at Wimbledon; to report on a World Cup soccer match at Dortmund, Germany; to watch the Winter Olympic Games at Innsbruck, Austria, and to even place a small wager on the greyhounds at Wembley, England.
As sports editor of The Denver Post, I also had more than my share of traditional American sports. I remember when the Denver Broncos, an upstart team from the American Football League, defeated the established NFL Minnesota Vikings to win the first exhibition game between the bitter rivals; I covered football games at the Sugar Bowl and the Cotton Bowl; I was in the gallery when Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer were dominating the PGA tour, and I was on hand when the Air Force Academy played its very first football game.
However, those things are in the past. This column is supposed to be about the present, while looking ahead to the future. * * * *
MY RETIREMENT ended shortly after it began. I was spending a summer vacation in Minnesota when a small, private high school in Marble Falls, Texas, issued a call for help with publicity for their six-man football team. My daughter, who lived in Marble Falls and had a boy and a girl as students at Faith Academy, volunteered my name. When I returned from vacation, I walked into my new job.
I can't say I didn't enjoy it. I did. I wrote up the team's games for the local newspaper, and it was fun to be back in the swing of things. The team helped, too. It qualified for the playoffs and played for the Texas State six-man championship. Faith Academy was bludgeoned in the title game, losing in Crawford, Texas, a town best known as home for a current U.S. president.
But, we Meades, whether you spell the name with or without the final "e", are a migrating family, so a couple of years later my wife and I began to long for our native Minnesota. When we moved back, we left Faith Academy's fledgling girls' basketball team in Marble Falls, Texas, without anyone to cover its games.
I already had started publishing this newsletter, so I had some first-hand knowledge of what could be done in today's amazing high tech world on a computer. I began to wonder if I could cover the team's games without actually being there.. It would depend upon the total cooperation of the coaches, so I put the question to them. If they would send me a box score, their version of the game and some quotes, I would try. My newspaper didn't have a writer it could spare to take over the job and readily agreed to the experiment. * * * * IT HAS BEEN two years now since we returned to Minnesota and my long-distance, computer reporting has worked out well.
The teams back in Marble Falls did their jobs. They reached the Final Four in girls basketball, won state titles in girls tennis and girls track, and placed second in boys track and swimming. The school, only in its eighth season and with a total enrollment of 66 boys and girls in grades 9 through 12, placed second overall in state all-sports competition.
The coaches were unbelievable. In more than two seasons, they did not miss getting to a computer and e-mailing me the results of a single game. I wrote the stories as I interpreted their game reports, sent them back to the coaches so they could be checked for accuracy, made any necessary corrections and e-mailed them to the newspaper in time for the next day's deadline.
I did not see a game in person during the two-year period. You can imagine my surprise when -- at the age of 79 -- I received a phone call advising me I had been chosen 2007 TAPPS Sportswriter of the Year. The school had nominated me for the honor, but without taking into consideration the extraordinary job the coaching staff had done in diligently getting me the results. * * * * I APOLOGIZE for, perhaps, boring you with this story, but there's a parable that goes with it: "You're never too old to tackle a seemingly impossible job!"
Winning the award was tremendously satisfying to me. The fact my efforts were appreciated meant more than the plaque I received. But, the commitment of the many others who helped me achieve it went so much farther. And, the foresight of those who made the final selection, showed a willingness to study the merits of an unorthodox nomination and accept the results of a very unusual undertaking.
As a University Model School, Faith Academy is something special and very different from most high schools. Their boys and girls attend classes in Monday-Wednesday-Friday or Tuesday-Thursday modes, much as our modern-day college students do. In between, they are home-schooled by parents as needed. And, the results are there. Last year, 22 of the 66 senior high students at Faith Academy were named to an All-State team in an accredited sport. The academic awards and those in related studies were equally impressive.
As I grow older, I often wonder about my role in life. Frequently, I ask myself if I was put here on this earth to spread the story of their success. Indeed, it is an amazing one -- one I have been immensely proud to be a part of.
A potter in Mogadore, Ohio
Looking for Ira Mills Mead
By F. ROBERT TREICHLER, Ph.D. Kent State University
The early history of the Ira Mills Mead Jr.'s family in the Continental United States is well documented. His sixth generation grandfather was William Mead of Watford, England, the pro-genitor of the Mead family in America. He arrived in Stamford, Conn., on Dec. 7, 1641 with sons Joseph and John and daughter Martha.
The gloried history of their pioneer family has been traced through John (1634-1699), the founder of Greenwich, Conn., and his wife, Hannah Potter. Johnathan, a blacksmith, led the migration to Dutchess County, N.Y., and Timothy was an early settler of Rutland, Vermont. But, two generations later, Ira's father, possibly motivated by harassment from hostile Indians in Vermont, moved on to an area in Muskingum County near Zanesville, Ohio, where he established an early pottery business.
His son, Ira Mills Mead Jr., was a potter of note, who carried on the trade from his father and went on to create some of the areas's finest pottery, often identified by an impression stamp including Ira's name and "Mogadore, Ohio," the town where it is believed to have been manufactured.
The search for information about Mead Pottery has been traced to Michigan where the interment of an "Ira M. Mead" was registered. He was about the correct age and was born in Vermont. But Ira was a private person with no male heirs and he has remained somewhat of a mystery man.
About 1825, an extensive deposit of stoneware clay (sometimes called "fire clay" because, with sufficient heat, it will vitrify or fuse) was found near the road between North Springfield and Mogadore. Potters in the area were quick to begin working with it. One of them, Ira's father, contacted Solomon Purdy of Zanesville with news of the discovery and a binding friendship was established.
Purdy had lost his wife and was caring for five small children between the ages of 6 and 15. Mead and his wife offered to help. Purdy moved to North Springfield and began to manufacture stoneware there. He bought property in the area, became active in the Presbyterian Church and repaid the kindness of Ira Mead Sr. by training his sons in the production of pottery. Purdy also taught his craft to his own three sons, although one of them is best remembered as a mayor of Akron.
Ira Mead Sr. died in the late 1830s (his last entry in the tax records was in 1836), but his eldest son, Ira Jr., and his wife, Jane Martin, continued the family business. He moved three miles east to Mogadore where he bought property on the northeast side of the town's main intersection. Behind their home, Ira Jr. established a stoneware pottery of his own. Solomon Purdy's sons also operated potteries nearby, probably because of the proximity of a good water supply that powered a grinding mill to mix and clean their clay.
For the next decade, the business prospered and Ira entered into partnerships with other local potters for the distribution of their products. Tax records indicate the Mogadore pottery owners were among the town's most affluent persons, paying tax on "non-working horse-drawn conveyances."
Ira and Jane were the parents of two daughters, each of whom died before the age of 4. Jane died, perhaps in childbirth, in 1849.
Fourteen months later, Ira remarried, this time to Adelia Hathaway, one of five sisters who had all come from New England to marry prosperous men in the Akron/Mogadore area. However, Ira decided it was time he should move on. An oral history done in the 1930s suggested he departed for Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the 1850s.
The same history report described Ira as a "handsome gentleman who always wore a white vest." He did not relinquish his ownership in the pottery shops because part-interests were sold to several individuals and Ira continued to pay business taxes until about 1856.
Examples of Mead pottery are not particularly rare and bear a variety of different signature marks. The most popular carries an impression stamp that includes Ira's name and "Mogadore, Ohio" in an italic font different from that of his name. These almost always had cobalt blue floral decorations. The inclusion of "Portage Co." in the signature indicated the piece was made before 1840. That is because county lines were redrawn in 1840 between Mogadore and Summit counties. About 1850, many pieces were marked "T.P. Mead," sometimes including the words "Summit Co. Ohio."
While the Mead family's pottery involvement seems to have ended with this generation, the Purdys continued into the twentieth century in Illinois and Missouri. Stoneware pottery as a household commodity went out of fashion and was supplanted by less expensive glass, metal and plastic products. Today, only a few specialty ceramic operations produce such wares, but the growth and decay of large-scale commercial operations have become a part of our cultural history.
Descendants of Ira Mead's brothers remained in northeast Ohio, however, Ira disappeared from public view. An 1850 business directory indicates he was a partner with C.E. Kent in a grocery store near the main downtown center of Cleveland, but there is no 1850 or 1860 census records showing he ever lived in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County. Further, there is no further mention of the business and searches of the Iowa census have not produced anyone who could be identified by name or age.
The best match was an 1870 death record for the state of Michigan, where an Ira M. Mead of the right age, who was identified as a native of Vermont, is registered.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: If anyone has information about Ira M. Mead Jr. of Mogadore, Ohio, please contact the author: F.R. Treichler, Ph. D., Emeritus Professor, Department of Psychology, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242-0001. His e-mail address is www.rtreichler@kent.edu.)
LAST OF A 4-PART SERIES War ends in surrender, assassination
Final resting place of 1st Lt Fayette C. Meade in Kinkead Cemetery at Alexandria, Minn.
1st Lt Fayette Clark Meade
By LEE MEADE Great grandson of Civil War veteran
The joy everyone had felt upon the end of the war just a few days earlier crashed about them the next day.
It was a whispered rumor at first, then there were angered shouts of disbelief, men thrashing about wildly, tears streaming down their faces.
The President was dead! Lincoln had been killed by an assassin's bullet!
Suddenly, it was as if the war was not over. It had not been won, at all!
While everyone waited in stunned silence, more details became available.
On April 14th, President Abraham Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln had gone to Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., to see actress Laura Keene in the play, "Our American Cousin." Shortly after 10 p.m., John Wilkes Booth, an actor himself and an outspoken critic of Lincoln, had stepped into the president's box and shot him at close range in the back of the head. The president had died at 7:22 the following day.
Booth had jumped from the balcony to the stage, injuring his leg in the process. But, admidst the confusion of the moment, he was able to make good his escape.
Following the surrender at Appomattox by Gen. Robert E. Lee to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Lincoln had returned to Washington in triumph. He had been an embattled president, widely criticized for his policies and his direction of the war. But, now he was at peace. Before leaving the River Queen, he hadshared his feelings with Admiral Porter: "Springfield!" Lincoln declared, making an obvious reference to his home in Illinois. "How happy, four years hence, will I be to return there in peace and tranquility."
Lt. Meade left Petersburg on April 24th to begin his final military journey before discharge. Two days later, the column was just outside Bowling Green, Virginia, when gunshots permeated the air ahead and they saw smoke rising from a burning barn just to the side of the road.
"We've got him," an excited rider shouted as he approached the column. "We've killed him! John Wilkes Booth is dead!"
Booth had escaped from Washington the night of the assassination. He had made his way into Northern Virginia and hidden from his pursuers for twelve days. Now, he had been trapped and had either been shot or killed by his own gun in a small tobacco house on Garrett's farm. Nobody was ever sure which.
Lt. Meade heard himself cheering the news. Like those around him, he felt a sense of satisfaction that the President's assassin had been killed. But, as the column continued on toward Washington, there was utter silence in the ranks. There were too many memories of death for continued celebration.
The assassination injected a new fear into the minds of people who had endured so much during the four years of Civil War. Was it retaliation by the vanquished Rebels? Was there a political insider plot to seize control of the U.S. government? There were as many ideas as there were people. And, the nation was scared. Northerners suspected a Southern conspiracy. Southerners waited in fear the North would take revenge against them.
In Washington, a small group of suspected collaborators had been rounded up and imprisoned to await trial. Lt. Meade volunteered to be part of the military guard and was assigned to temporary duty with Gen. John F. Hartranft's command in the Washington Arsenal Penitentiary.
The accused were George A. Atzerodt, Mrs. Mary E. Surratt, John Surratt, Edward Spangler, Lewis Payne, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, David E. Herold and Michael O'Laughlin. Their trial began on May 9, 1865, just 22 days after their arrest.
The mood of the people dictated the almost inhuman treatment of the accused. They were pre-judged guilty before they were heard. During the trial, the seven men were handcuffed and wore iron shackles around their ankles. Much of the time they were forced to wear hoods as circumstantial testimony was presented. They were ill-prepared to defend themselves and regardless of guilt or innocense were victims of a court that appeared intent upon vengeance before justice.
It was difficult duty for Lt. Meade. The soldiers he had at his command were as vindictive as the public. Crowds of people surrounded the prison. The families of those on trial waited outside for word on the fate of their loved ones. Threats were directed at anybody coming in or leaving. In some ways, he felt a greater tension than he had on the battlefield.
Meade was a disciplined military officer, but he empathized with the relatives of the accused. He particularly noted Mrs. Mudd, a doctor's wife from northern Virginia. There was no evidence the Mudds had known Booth prior to the assassination, but Mudd stood accused because he had set Booth's broken leg following his escape from Ford's Theatre.
"Why are they trying him?" Mrs. Mudd implored Lt. Meade. "My husband just did what he has done all his life . . . help people in need. He isn't guilty of any conspiracy!"
The young lieutenant was inclined to believe her and he watched with restrained pain as she stood outside the courtroom hour after hour, day after day through the entire trial. He could offer her no solace.
But, there was time for celebration, too. President Andrew Johnson had been installed in office and the government of the United States turned its attention to building the peace.
On May 23 and 24, more than 200,000 members of the Volunteer Armies of the Union were honored in a Grand Review in Washington. For the first time since Lincoln's death in April, the capital was alive once more as soldiers paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue. They wore their uniforms and carried their flags, regardless of how faded or torn they were. It was one of the proudest moments in a nation's history.
Henry Howard Brownell saluted them with a poem which was published in the Atlantic Monthly. The last verse read:
"March on, your last brave mile! Salute him, Star and Lace! Form round him rank and file, And look on the kind, rough face; But the quaint and homely smile Has a glory and a grace It never had known erewhile -- Never, in time and space . . . "
The trial of the accused conspirators continued, and on June 30, the Military Commission announced its judgment: Herold, Payne and Mrs. Surratt were sentenced to be hanged; Arnold, Mudd and O'Laughlin were sentenced to be imprisoned for life, and Spangler received a six-year sentence at hard labor.
Before the war, Washington, D.C., had been a favorite city for Lt. Meade. He had come there for the first time in 1860, visiting the Smithsonian Institute and the Washington Monument among the many popular sites to see. But, the time he endured on the front lines at the Siege of Petersburg and the raw emotion of the assassination trial left him drained of emotion. All he could think about was leaving this part of his life behind and returning to Michigan.
There were 1,034,064 volunteers on active duty on May 1, 1865. By August 7, more than 640,000 had been mustered out.
On July 26, 1865, at Delany House in the District of Columbia, 1st Lt. Fayette C. Meade was honorable discharged from the 2nd Company, 27th Regiment of Michigan Volunteers.
Without any hesitation, he turned in his military supplies and headed for the railroad station the following day to begin his journey home . . . to his wife, Mary Jane; to his daughter, Ellen Louise . . . and to the small farm outside Litchfield, Michigan.
"Ellen Louise," he said her name to himself quietly as the train jerked to a start and slowly began to move out of the station. "Ellen Louise is two years old today. Happy birthday, my darling daughter. Your daddy's coming home!"
(EDITOR'S NOTE: This story is based upon the life of my great grandfather, Fayette Clark Meade. The material comes from letters he wrote to his wife and records he kept while serving with the Michigan Volunteers in the Civil War. Every effort has been taken to assure the accuracy of the historical events depicted, together with names, dates and places, although a writer's license has been exercised to meld them into a meaningful congruity.)
Let us hear from you Please write to us or send us an e-mail message at www.LeeMeadeRoots@aol.com with your comments about articles in this publication. Queries about your family tree will be answered without charge. If you have a manuscript you would be willing to share with our readers, mail it to: Lee Meade, Mead-e Newsletter, 8505 Flying Cloud Drive, Apt. 221, Eden Prairie, MN 55344. The editor reserves the right to edit all material. The newsletter is supported solely by contributions and donations from its readership, which can be sent to the same address.
