Reese Meredith, the father of Samuel Meredith, was born in Herfordshire, England. He graduated at Baliol College, Oxford, in 1728, and emigrated to Philadelphia in 1730, and entered the counting house of John Carpenter, a prominent merchant, married Martha, the youngest daughter of his employer, and was taken in as a partner, and succeeded his father-in-law in business.
In 1766, Reese Meredith took in partnership his son, Samuel, and his son-in-law, George Clymer. He was one of the three hundred and fifty merchants and citizens of Philadelphia, who in October 1765, signed the celebrated Non-Importation Resolutions. His son and son-in-law were also signers. During the darkest hours of the Revolution, his faith never wavered in the righteous cause of the colonies.
When the patriots were starving at Valley Forge, Reese Meredith gave $25,000 in silver, to buy food and clothing for the sufferers. He devoted his time to business, and it is not known that he ever held any public office. He died Nov. 17, 1778, aged seventy-one years, leaving three children, as follows: Anne, wife of Henry Hill; Samuel, (subject of this sketch); Elizabeth, wife of George Clymer, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Samuel Meredith was born in Philadelphia, in 1741, and was educated at the academy at Chester. His fellow-student was Philemon Dickinson, afterwards his brother-in-law, as they married sisters. He married in 1771, Margaret, youngest daughter of Dr. Thomas Cadwalader, of Philadelphia. Samuel Meredith several times represented Philadephia county in the Colonial Assembly. In June 1775, he was commissioned mayor of the 3rd Battalion on Pennsylvania Militia, and was in the battles of Trenton and Princeton. Upon the occupation of Philadelphia by the British in 1777, he and his family were exiled. In October of that year he received the commission of brigadier-general of Pennsylvania Militia. In June 1780, Gen. Meredith and George Clymer each pledged his property and credit that each would pay to procure provisions for the army of the United States the sum of $25,000. From 1783 to 1786 Gen. Meredith was in the State Legislature, and from 1786 to 1788 in the Continental Congress, upon the organization of the government under the Constitution of the United States, adopted the 17th day of September 1787.
President George Washington, on the 11th of September, 1789, nominated Samuel Meredith as treasurer of the United States, which nomination was readily confirmed by the Senate. He held the office through the administration of George Washington and John Adams, for twelve years, when he resigned. Upon his accession to the office he was warmly congratulated by Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury, and upon his retirement, Thomas Jefferson complimented him for his integrity and ability. In or about 1774, Meredith an Clymer purchased a large amount of wild lands in Western Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, in Delaware and Sullivan counties, NY and in all the north-eastern counties of Pennsylvania, aggregation about 1,969,000 acres, worth about ten cents per acre. The payment of taxes on said lands drew heavily on their resources. Owning a large amount of land in Wayne and Susquehanna counties, Mr. Meredith, about 1786, commenced making improvements at a place in the township of Mount Pleasant, which place he afterwards named Belmont.
In 1802, he was assessed as having sixty acres of improved land and a dwelling house valued at twenty dollars, but as a non-resident. Soon after this he moved to Belmont and built a dwelling house which cost six thousand dollars. To this place he retired from the turmoil of public life, and spent the evening of his days in quietude and seclusion, and there died, February10, 1817 in the seventy-sixth year of his age. He had seven children. Noted among them were: Martha, mother of the late John M. Read, Chief Justice of PA; Anna, ,mother of Philemon Dickinson, Esq., (who was 45 years President of the Trenton Banking Co.) and also of the late Col. Samuel Dickinson; Thomas; Maria, who died in 1854.
Thomas Meredith was born in Philadelphia in 1779, and educated in the University of Pennsylvania, upon leaving which he made a voyage to India and China. He was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1805, to the Wayne County bar in 1810, and to the Luzerne County bar in 1816. He was prothonotary and register and recorder of Wayne County, from 1818 to 1821, and held other important positions . In 1824, he opened the first coal mines below Carondale, to which place he moved his family about 1830. He died in Trenton, NJ in March 1855, leaving one son, Samuel Reese Meredith, who was born in Wayne County in 1823. In or about the year 1855, the latter was active in the formation of a company called the Lackawanna Coal and Iron Co. The enterprise failed and he lost all his property, and broken down and disheartened he died in the Pennsylvania Hospital, at Philadelphia in the year of 1865.
Samuel Meredith, the first treasurer of the United States, was buried at Belmont, in Mount Pleasant, and it has been, if it is not yet, a matter of doubt as to the exact place of his interment. It is strange that his wealthy children neglected to erect a monument to the memory of their patriotic father. Would it not become the United States to appropriate a few thousand dollars to perpetuate the memory of a man who, in our early days, gave $25,000 to feed and clothe our suffering soldiers, and whose father gave alike sum for the like purpose?
History of Wayne County by Goodrich
Meredith was also a share-holder of a company formed in Philadelphia, 18th of Sept. 1792, "to be called the Union Society, for promoting the manufacture of sugar from the maple tree and furthering the interests of agriculture in PA. The Society's attention to be primarily and principally confined to that purpose and to the manufacturing of pot and pearl ashes." The business was discontinued in 1796. Afterwards Samuel Meredith understood the manufacture of pot ash near Belmont a could not make it pay.
History of Wayne County by Goodrich
Not finding a ready sale for his tract of land in Pleasant Mount, he built a well finished house there -- during the year 1812, on this property at a cost of about $6,000. He named it Belmont. The house was destroyed by fire in fall of 1890. Buried in the family cemetery by the side of Mrs. Meredith, his accomplished wife. This cemetery was located about a quarter of a mile east of his residence. It was enclosed by a stone wall, graves marked by a plain marble slab and through the years this plot was overgrown with sapling and bushes until the year 1904 when the remains of Mr. and Mrs. Meredith were placed in a triangular park at the intersection of the Bethany and Newburg Turnpike in the village of Pleasant Mount.
On June 8 1904 a beautiful monument that had been placed on their last resting place was unveiled by a relative of Mr. Meredith. People came from far and near to take part in the great event and to pay long delayed tribute to a man who was a credit to his country.
by David A. Byron
In 1903 the Samuel Meredith Monument Association was organized with J.H. Kennedy, president, and J.E. Tiffany, secretary of the board of Trustees. Contract was entered into with Martin Caufield of Honesdale to erect a Barre, Vermont, granite monument with statue from westerly Rhode Island granite for $3,000. The statue was designed by the late Miss Clara Keen of Honesdale.
Permission to remove bodies of General and Mrs. Meredith from Belmont to the triangular square in Pleasant Mount village by descendants and dedicatory celebration was held June 8, 1904.
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