Paul Meader, son of Joseph Meader (c. 1730-1784) [0024] and Lydia Hoag (  –  ), was born in Lee, NH in 1765 and died in 1842. His parents remained in Lee until 1769 and then moved to Barnstead, Belknap, NH for twelve years. [But his father Joseph seems to have been in Lee during this period.] Thence Paul Meader moved to Warren, Grafton, NH and settled upon a mountainside in the northwestern part of the town near a pond which still bears the name "Meader Pond." He may have returned to Lee, for the 1790 Census shows a Paul Meader living there with a family at that time.

On November 2, 1787 [but at 30 years of age, according to the A. A. Meader manuscript] he married Deborah Knight, daughter of George Knight and Mary Penhallow of Kittery, York, Maine. She was granddaughter of Justice Samuel Penhallow of Portsmouth, NH.

In his later years Paul Meader told his children of the poverty around them during the Revolutionary War. The poorer classes would come to his father Joseph Meader’s house and beg for corn cobs to grind into meal to keep them from starving. He would give them two quarts of corn and a bushel of cobs, which was considered a prize. Eventually the rebels [probably the Continental Army] came up the river, and his family with others fled to the woods, taking their silver spoons, clothing and valuables with them.

When Paul and Deborah Meader were married and moved to Warren, they were entertained on the way at Deacon Joseph Smith’s home in Meredith, now Winona, NH. [This is not the Mormon leader.] Their son, Joseph Smith Meader, was born there.

The death of Paul Meader was sudden. He and his son Elisha were moving logs that had been piled. When the oxen were attached to one of the logs, it suddenly started and he was crushed under it. Paul Meader was small in stature (his wife was a large-framed, muscular woman of great physical energy) and Elisha was unable to give assistance. Aid came only after two hours, when Paul Meader was dead.