Summers County
Meadows Family

Source: "History of Summers County, West Virginia "
Author James H. Miller Pub. 1908 pg. 401-402
Transcribed for Geneology Trails by Mrs. Walter Henderson Pack, Sr.

This is one of the largest families in the county, and the connection is scattered through Raleigh, Mercer, and adjoining counties. The original name was "Meadows," but many of the descendants are now "Meador," but the original ancestor of all the Meadows and Meadors are the same: Josiah and Jacob Meadows, two of a family who came to this region after the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. They came about 1780 - between that date and 1785. Jacob came from Rockingham County from the same settlement as John and Christian Peters, who came in 1782. Judge Johnston, in his "New River Settlements," says he filed a claim for a pension in the County Court of Giles County in 1832, and that he therein states that his first enlistment was for three months under Captain Coker, In Colonel Wall's Regiment. During his three months' service he skirmished with the British around Norfolk and Portsmouth. The last three months he served as a substitute for Adam Hansberger, and served in the Battle of Yorktown, in LaFayette's Corps. John Peters swears that he saw him at Yorktown serving as a soldier. He settled on Lower East River. The other was Josiah Meadows, and he came from the county of Bedford. He was also a soldier in the Continental armies for two or more periods, a part of the time against the Indians and in the American Army against the British. He enlisted in 1778, under Captain Joseph Henfoe. He marched with him to Jarrett's Fort, in Wolf Creek, now Monroe County, and from there to Keeney's Fort, on the Greenbrier River below Alderson. After the expiration of this enlistment he again enlisted with Captain Isaac Taylor, Colonel James Montgomery's Regiment, and served in the Holstein country, and then into the Illinois country, under George Rogers Clark. After that he was with the American Army at Yorktown in charge of the British prisioners captured there. He was a fighting missionary Baptist minister, locating on Bluestone River, at the mouth of Little Bluestone, and among his sons were Josiah and John Meadows. From this Josiah, the soldier-preacher, has descended the large family in this region. Later came Meador. The Meador or Meadows and Lilly families became closely allied by marriage, Robert being the founder of that family, first settling at East River, and later in what is now Jumping Branch District, on the farm owned and on which Joseph Lilly (Curly Joe) lived at his death in 1906. Robert, the founder, was a justice in Mercer County.

Josiah Meadows, the soldier, was the grandfather of Hon. Rufus G.M. Meador, of Athens, and John Calvin Meador, who recently died in this country. He was the great-grandfather of Joseph M. Meador; clerk of the County Court of Summers, and the grandfather of the Rev. John J. Meador, Green M. Meador, the merchant-minister, of Jumping Branch, of the firm of Meador & Deeds, who married his partner's daughter (C.B. Deeds), also of Larkin McDowell Meador, the merchant who died in 1889 at True, while deputy sheriff for Sheriff O.T. Kessler; as well as of Mrs. B.P. Shumate, and is the ancestor of many other prominent and valuable citizens, including William T. Meador, the first president of the county court, elected under the amended Constitution about 1874, and James E. Meadows, the present mayor of Avis, a prominent citizen, once a justice of the peace by election for a term of four years, and the Republican nominee for commissioner of the county court, and the father of A.G. Meador, the assistant postmaster of Hinton and mayor of Avis for three terms by election.

In October, 1778, the Legislature of Virginia created and erected the county of Illinois, which included all of the Northwest territory north of the Ohio, south of the great lakes and east of the Mississippi. The county of Illinois continued as a Virginia county until its session of March, 1784. Kentucky County remained a distinct county of Virginia until its organization into a State.

(Note: Josiah Meadows ("the soldier" as he is noted throughout this biography) gave evidence for the family of Mordecai Hicks as to his and Mordecai's Rev. War. service together. (Mordecai died while in service in the "Illinois Country"). You can read the transcription of his evidence at http://hicksgenealogy.com/mordecai.html)