The man born on Irish soil, breathing Irish air, drinking in the
beauty of the hills and vales and streams and loughs of Ireland,
listening to whispering winds of Irish seas, hearing the story and
legend of the Irish days long gone, his heart and soul responding to
the hopes of those around him, be his father English or Norman,
Scotch or Welsh, Dane or Norse, French or Dutch, that man will grow
into an Irishman. This is the verdict of history; this is the
experience of seven centuries. Let them come from where they will,
those who plunge into the Irish Lethe emerge on the other bank
Irishmen, better betimes than the son of the older race, more Irish
than the Irish.
Conditions, climate, environment are more potent than blood; they
are the instruments with which God works. The normal man born on
Irish soil and growing to manhood on it is an Irishman. Carry him to
the most remote quarter of the earth, and he is still Irish, and his
children even to the tenth generation.
On May 4, 1897, the sad tidings reached the society of the death of
Admiral Meade, the President of the society. He was born in New York
City, 1837; appointed midshipman Oct. 2, 1850; first sea service in
sloop-of-war _Preble_, 1851; warrant as master and commission as
lieutenant, 1858; lieutenant-commander, 1862; was a commander in 1870;
commissioned captain in 1880; became a commodore in 1892, and
rear-admiral in 1894; admitted to the society at its organization, Jan.
20, 1897, and chosen President-General of the same, being the first to
hold the office.
The Meade family has been to a wonderful extent identified with the
growth and development of our national life. A glance at the societies
of which Admiral Meade was a member, will show the active and heroic
part this family has taken in every movement since the settlement of the
land.
* * * * *
1. The Order of the Founders and Patriots of America, 1607–57, 1775–83.
(Councillor of New York Society.)
_Period 1607–57._
_Ancestors._ 1) Vincent Meigs, 1583–1658.
2) John Meigs, 1st, 1612–72.
3) John Meigs, 2d, 1640–91.
[Illustration:
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
NEW YORK CITY
]
[Illustration:
PATRICK WALSH
GEORGIA
]
[Illustration:
THOMAS ADDIS EMMET
NEW YORK CITY
]
Vincent Meigs and his son John, 1st, were emigrants to Connecticut in
1637–38, and in 1639 were among the founders of Guilford, Conn. John
Meigs, 2d, was one of the patentees of Guilford mentioned in the Charter
granted by James II to the town, May 25, 1685.
_Period 1775–83._
The patriot progeny of the above-named who made their mark in the War of
Independence were four brothers (sons of Admiral Meade’s maternal
great-great-grandfather, Return Meigs, of Middletown, Conn., born 1708,
died 1770) as follows:
1) Col. Return Jonathan Meigs, of the 6th Connecticut line, born 1740,
died 1823. He was with Montgomery at Quebec, having crossed the
wilderness with Arnold, and he commanded the expedition against Sag
Harbor, May 21, 1777, which destroyed the British vessels’ defenses and
stores. He was one of the four colonels that led the forlorn hope at the
storming of Stony Point, July 15, 1779, under General Wayne. He figures
as one of the best and most reliable soldiers of the Revolution.