Pioneer Families - Meredith

Guernsey County Merediths date back to 1819 when George Meredith came here from Virginia to which he had moved from Pennsylvania, and entered a quarter section of land in Londonderry Township.  He bought it at the government land office in Stubenville, and the deed given him was signed by President James Monroe.  The quarter section he bought at probably two dollars an acre was the northwest one-fourth of Section 24, Twp. 10, Range 7.

The Merediths originated in Wales and went over into England to live.  They were in sympathy with the Quaker movement which started in England about the middle of the 17th Century and when William Penn founded a colony in America, they came to America and settled in Pennsylvania.

Here in this country, according to their family traditions, some of the Merediths became distinguished.  In his autobiography Benjamin Franklin mentions a Meredith (a member of this particular branch) who furnished him money to enable him to get started in the printing business.  A Meredith was Attorney General of Pennsylvania, and another was the first Treasurer of the United States under the Constitution.

The first of the Guernsey County branch of Merediths of whom we have authentic record was Thomas.  Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1750, he was twenty-five years old when the Revolutionary War began.  On January 23, 1776, he enlisted and served as a private under Captain John Reese and Colonel Arthur St. Clair.  (This Colonel St. Clair afterwards became the first Governor of the Northwest Territory.

In 1782, the war being over, Thomas Meredith married Eleanor Thomas, born in 1754.  This couple became the parents of six children all born in Pennsylvania, as follows: Thomas, Owen, George, Jonathon, Sarah and Lettice.  All six children married and reared families.

The records in the pension office at Washington show that Thomas Meredith applied for and granted a pension in 1818.  He died in 1844, aged ninety-four.

As stated above, George, the third son of Thomas and Eleanor Meredith, came to Guernsey County with his family in 1819.  Until his death which occurred in 1868, he continued to live on the Londonderry Township quarter section of land which he entered.  His 7 children were Thomas, George W., John, Robert, Isabella, Eleanor and William, who died at the age of twenty-five.  As was the custom in early days, the Merediths seemed to hold to family names.