Obadiah Mead's Belted Jacket, Part One By Tyler Rudd Putnam; Tuesday, March 24, 2020

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(1) Spencer P. Mead, History and Genealogy of the Mead Family of Fairfield County, Connecticut, Western New York, Western Vermont, and Western Pennsylvania, from A.D. 1180 to 1900 (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1901), 389.

(2) Account Book of Benjamin Mead Jr., 1765-1779, Mss 641, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA.

(3) Ibid. See also Letter, Benjamin Mead Jr. to “Sir,” February 14, 1780, Document 72b, Volume 30 Part II/Reel 150, Connecticut Archives, Revolutionary War, 1763-1789.

(4) Henry P. Johnston, ed., The Record of Connecticut Men in the Military and Naval Service During the War of the Revolution, 1775-1783 (Hartford, CT: The Adjutant General’s Office, 1889), 457 and 487.

(5) Document 416, Volume 25/Reel 145, Connecticut Archives, Revolutionary War, 1763-1789.

(6) Mead, History and Genealogy, 389. For a recent study of two men who grew up in Connecticut at the same time as Obadiah Mead, see Virginia DeJohn Anderson, The Martyr and the Traitor: Nathan Hale, Moses Dunbar, and the American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), including commentary on marriages, 23-31.

(7) Letter, John Mead and Amos Mead to the Assembly, October 27, 1779, Document 267, Volume 15/Reel 135, and Committee Report, May 12, 1780, Document 266, Volume 18/Reel 138, Connecticut Archives, Revolutionary War, 1763-1789. For more on the relations of opposing sides in this region, see Judith L. Van Buskirk, Generous Enemies: Patriots and Loyalists in Revolutionary New York(Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002).

(8) Account Book of Benjamin Mead Jr., 1765-1779, Mss 641, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA.

(9) Letter, John Mead and Amos Mead to the Assembly, October 27, 1779, Document 267, Volume 15/Reel 135, Connecticut Archives, Revolutionary War, 1763-1789.

(10) Report, December 27, 1783, Document 19, Volume 36, Part I/Reel 156, Connecticut Archives, Revolutionary War, 1763-1789. See also reports of tax abatements throughout this document set: Report, December 24, 1779, Document 271c, Volume 15/Reel 135; Report, May 12, 1780, Document 266, Volume 18/Reel 138; Report, October 6, 1780, Document 80, Volume 19/Reel 139; Report, October 2, 1782, Document 274g, Volume 24/Reel 144.

(11) As part of this research, I visited the collections of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (Boston, MA), the Connecticut Historical Society (Hartford), and the Connecticut State Library (Hartford). I am also grateful to the Greenwich (Connecticut) Historical Society for allowing me access to their collections files on Mead’s jacket, which directed me to several of the secondary sources cited here.

(12) “A History of the Hyde Branch Read by One of the Descendants,” Greenwich Graphic, October 26, 1895. A typographical error of a period in place of a comma after “however” has been silently corrected here.

(13) See, for example, Commemorative Biographical Record of Fairfield County, Connecticut (Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1899), 361; Mead, History and Genealogy, 60–61; Spencer P. Mead, Ye Historie of Ye Town of Greenwich (New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1911), 147.

(14) For this and other records of this branch of the Mead family, see Mead Family Papers, 1764-1897, MS 79427, and Benjamin and Obadiah Mead papers, 1751-1877, MS 63965, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford.

(15) Account Book of Benjamin Mead Jr., 1765-1779, Mss 641, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA.

(16) The copy of Mead’s will in the Connecticut State Library Archives is somewhat problematic because it is dated (on its exterior) 1786 and 1788, though he died in 1783 according to Spencer, History, 389. See Mead collection of Greenwich items including bonds, deeds and estate papers relating to the Mead family, 1755-1858, Connecticut State Library, Hartford.

(17) Mead, History and Genealogy, 61. There are no entries for this particular Obadiah Mead in the following card catalogs maintained by the Connecticut State Library: Barbour Collection Town Vital Records, Church Records Index, Family Bible Records, Newspaper Death Notices, Newspaper Marriage Notices, Probate Estate Papers, and Veterans’ Death Records.

Thanks to the Greenwich Historical Society and the University of Delaware for supporting the research behind these blog posts. I am very grateful for the technical insights of James L. Kochan, Matthew Skic, Neal Hurst, and Keith Minsinger; the gracious hosting of the Perry-Englund family; and for most everything else to Nicole Belolan. 

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