Joseph Smith Meader, son of Elisha Meader (1788-1877) [0165] and Susan Smith (1790-1831), was born March 7, 1818 in Winona, NH. He married Hannah Brigham Critchett.

He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in East Boston, where he lived the early part of his married life. His business was trucking, in company with his wife's brother Asa. Later he went to California, where he accumulated real estate in the Sacramento Valley. A destructive freshet [flood] washed out the valley, carrying his property with it. He never returned east. His wife joined him in California, but his children remained in the east.