James Chapin Meader, son of Burton Hathaway Meader (1805-1879) [0197] and Mary Chapin (1812-1846), was born in Easton, NY in 1835 and died in Silver City, NM in 1914 [the same source on another occasion records 1917]. He left Easton as a young man and went to Virginia, where in 1854 he married Susan Elizabeth Stubblefield, born in 1835 and died in 1915, a first cousin of General Robert E. Lee. [Many Virginia Stubblefields are listed in The Meador Family, and a number married Meadors. Susan Elizabeth is not mentioned there, however, nor is General Lee.]

James Meader served four years in the Confederate Army while his brother Edward [0331] and two of his brothers-in-law served with the Union forces. After the War he moved to Sherman in the Texas Panhandle, where he was a rancher, often acting as trail boss in cattle drives to Dodge City. He was also a builder, having erected the Court House in Sherman.

In 1879 the family moved again, to a ranch 72 miles northwest of Silver City, New Mexico. This was Indian territory, and the family was once besieged for three days by Apaches under Chief Victorio. Later the family moved to a ranch 12 miles nearer Silver City. This ranch, known as Meader’s Station, was kept in the family until 1932. Both James Meader and his wife were well known pioneers in New Mexico.

A full account of their adventurous lives may be found in a sketch by Byron M. Herrington in the Easton Public Library.