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- Archive Record of Lillie Dunford Mecham;
9 Aug 2004 http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~colby/colbyfam/d415.html
(email: rmcolby@micro-net.com) :
"Doctor Thomas MEACHAM was born on 1 JUL 1771 in Canaan, Grafton County, New Hampshire. He died on 7 MAY 1849 in Dickinson, Franklin County, New York. He was buried on 7 MAY 1849 in Dickinson, Franklin County, New York. He has Ancestral File number 2TCN-36. DR. THOMAS MEACHAM To begin a sketch on the life of Dr. Thomas Meacham. We can do no better than to quote from "A BRIEF HISTORY OF MY LIFE" by Edward Thomas Meacham, a grandson of Dr. Thomas Meacham. Under the heading "Account of My Ancestors." he writes: "There is a tradition in our family handed down, and confirmed by my paternal grandfather, that the Meachams came from Scotland in a very early day. "My great-grandfather, Samuel Meacham, was born at Stonington, Connecticut about 1740. Of him I know but little. He moved from there, with his family, to Canaan, New Hampshire. His wife, my great-grandmother, lived to be nearly 100 year old. My grandfather, Thomas Meacham was born 1 July 1771 in Canaan, New Hampshire. He lived there 25 years or more; was married during that time and finally moved himself and family to the town of Fletcher in the north part of the State of Vermont, bought 100 acres of land or more. lived there 11 or 12 years and finally settled in Dickenson, County of Franklin, State of New York in the year 1807 or 1808. He bought land of H. B. Pierpont to the amount of 250 acres. The west bounds of his land joined Hopkinton, St. Lawrence County, N.Y. He never did much farming, employed most of his time in hunting. He was a man of truth and integrity; a man that you could depend on. "Grandmother Meacham's maiden name was Sarah Cauley. She was of Irish origin, She was born 20 November. 1769, in New Salem, State of Massachusetts. She was a very good woman, very bright and intelligent. She could remember hearing the cannon at the commencement of the Revolution. She died in the town of Lawrence, St. Lawrence County, New York, 12 January, 1858, age 88 years, one month and twenty-three days." The author of "A Brief History of My Life," from which I shall quote freely, was the son of Thomas Meacham Jr. and the history was written at Hopkinton, N. Y.. where he had associated with his grandparents. Dr. Thomas and Sarah Cauley Meacham for many years. His "History," consists of five notebooks full of well written and interesting material which I have in my possession, given me by the last surviving child of the author, Ada R. Meacham Watson. During the eleven or twelve yeas that Dr. Thomas and his wife, Sarah, lived at Fletcher, Vermont. five more children were born to them: Stephen Peabody, 12 March 1797, Temma, 24 September 1799: Jeremiah, 28 July 1801; Hannah 28 April 1803, and Joseph 18 May 1806. Soon after the birth of the youngest of these children. for reasons unknown to us Thomas left Fletcher and his family and some debts, as is shown by the town records which give an account of the appraisal of his property to determine if a claim by two creditors could be settled. One item listed for appraisal is as follows: "One hundred acres of land, being the farm on which the said Meacham's family now resides." This appraisal was made 23 February 1807, but there is no record of the sale of any of the property and the family continued to live "on the farm" for several years afterward. Thomas Meacham is next heard of in Northern New York where he become famous as a hunter and trapper. The Historical Society of Malone, N. Y. gave the following under the title "A Mighty Hunter." "Franklin County, New York. Can boast of one of the greatest hunters of all time in the person of Thomas Meacham who was, probably, a Vermonter and who must have arrived in this county in the early part of the 19th century as it appears in the proceedings of the 'Board of Supervisors' for the year 1808, that he had been paid $50.00 as bounty on wolves he had killed." "He first settled in the town of Hopkinton. St. Lawrence Co.. N. Y.. but a little later on moved over the line into Franklin County and into what is now the town of Waverly, where he purchased fifty acres of land and built himself a home on the old Northwest Bay Road where he spent the remainder of his life." "The deed conveying this property is dated 10 Nov.1810, and is recorded in Liber No.1 of the deed records in Franklin County, it being the first tract of land sold to a settler by the executors of the will of Wm. Constable and lies in what is now the town of Waverly. He subsequently purchased three other fifty acre tracts between 1810 and 1828 all of which, it is said were paid for with wolf bounties. He died in 1849." "Frederick J. Seaver has this to say of him in his history of Franklin County. "It was he who gave the name to Meacham Lake, a beautiful body of water the Adirondacks laying lying twenty-five miles south of Malone. (Now owned by the State of New York.) "His earnings in bounties for noxious animals in the forty years of his activities, must have aggregated thousands of dollars, as his obituary written by a townsman state that he kept accurate account of the number of large animals trapped or shot by him and that the totals were: Wolves, 214; Bear, 210: Catamounts, 77: and Deer 2550. Bounties were payable for all of these except deer and if we average these at only $10.00 each, his revenue from the source would be over $5000.00." About the time Thomas came to St. Lawrence and Franklin counties, New York, and for reasons at present unknown to the writer, he and his wife, Sarah Cauley, separated. Whether or not they were divorced I cannot say, but he took a second wife, or woman companion, Rebecca Sanford, who had previously been twice married, first to a man named Grandy and then to Evan Call. She it was, who lived with him at Waverlv, Franklin Co.. N.Y, and bore for him two sons, Washington and Samuel, and two or more daughters. Sarah. the first wife whom Thomas left with her children at Fletcher, Vermont, followed her children to S1. Lawrence County, N.Y., in 1825, and took up her residence at Lawrence where she is buried having lived nine years after the death of Thomas, while Rebecca preceeded him by several years. Living descendants of Thomas Meacham who have heard their parents or grandparent say he was a doctor are borne out in this by the manuscript of the late Ida Meacham Storbridge and the following quotation from "A Brief History of My Life" by Edward Thomas Meacham which is as follows: "In a few days after I came home I was taken down with a fever. One morning a young doctor from the East, going West to practice, called at our home. Father requested him to see me. He decided that I should be bled; accordingly he bled me in my arms, taking a large quanity of blood. The result was I grew worse. Father decided to go after my grandfather Thomas Meacham who was good and successful Botanic Doctor, as well as a noted hunter. He did not approve of the bleeding. It was the practice in those days to bleed the patient at once, no matter what the cause of the sickness. My grandfather always opposed bleeding and never practiced it unless it was strictly necessary, Grandfather lived seven miles from our house. I was sick a long time. Grandfather came every day till I was better (on horse back) with his large leather saddle bags across his saddle. Some three weeks of the time I was sick was lost time to me. I was unconscious most of this time. Finally I got well again." In the manuscript of the late Ida Meacham Strobridge where she lists the children of Samuel, the Revolutionary War soldier, and Phebe Main Meacham, she names Thomas, who, she says, "became a physician and lived for many years on the shore of Meacham Lake in northern New York." She also states that he was known as "The Mighty Hunter of the Adirondacks." In an article published in the "Potsdam Courior and Freeman" the following story is told by C. Brush, whose grandparents had dealings with the "Famous Hunter." Speaking of Meacham he says "He kept a horse for riding on the road, and when the infirmities of age began, to curtail his hunting and trapping activities, tried to ride the old horse into the woods, but with poor success. Grandfather "Eliphalet Brush" was then raising some nice colts of the blood strain that later became famous as Morgans. Meacham took a shine to a three year old sorrel, and after much dickering reluctantly parted with the price. Being warned that the colt was unbroken he exclaimed, "That is just what I want. I can't teach my old horse new tricks, but this colt is kind and tame and looks knowin'. I believe he I can train hime to carry me huntin' and trappin'. He was not disappointed. It was said that the colt soon entered into the spirit of the thing, walking very quietly in the woods and creeping up on deer. The hunter would shoot from his back, then dismount, do the necessary skinning, place the deer saddles and hide on the horse and remounting, ride home. Sometimes he would kill mor than one deer and ride out with vension and hides for and after. The writer has in his possession the hunting knife with a nine-inch blade; the powder horn, with his initials T. M., carved on it, a shot pouch, and a fish-basket, or creel, which he had made; also several deeds and papers signed by Thomas Meacham. Information concerning Thomas and his second wife, Rebecca, I have received from Marion Meacham Young of St. Regis Falls, R. D. No.1, N, Y., who is the youngest daughter of Samuel, the son of Dr. Thomas and his second wife, Rebecca. Other information contained in this sketch not otherwise accounted for comes to me through records of the Mormon church and the family records of Stephen Peabody Meacham the second son of Dr. Thomas and Sarah Cauley Meacham, whose great grandson I am. --J. Arthur Meacham.
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1771 - 1849 (77 years)