0485. Lewis Hamilton Meader (1851 - 1925)
Born: 1851
Died: 1925
0485. Lewis Hamilton Meader (1851 - 1925)
Lewis Hamilton Meader, son of Granville Carleton Meader (1822-1900) [0380] and Elizabeth Augusta Colburn (1822-1902), was born at Ryegate, VT on April 27, 1851. He attended Peacham Academy, Peacham, VT and was graduated from Dartmouth College (Class of 1878). He received his Master's degree and later, in 1900, his Doctorate, from Brown University.
He was Principal of the Peter High School, Southboro, MA, in 1878-1879, of the Warren High School in Rhode Island from 1879-1896, and of the Mount Pleasant High School in Providence before becoming Principal of the Academy Avenue Grammar School in Providence. He was also Principal of the Lexington Avenue Grammar School and the Sackett Street Grammar School in Providence. While attending college he had taught in district schools in Ryegate, Newbury, and Groton, VT. He was a trustee of Peacham Academy.
His doctoral dissertation was a study of the Council of Censors, a method employed by Pennsylvania for a brief period after 1776 and by Vermont from 1791 to 1869 in amending the State Constitution. This was published in two sections, the part relating to Pennsylvania in the Pennsylvania Magazine and Biography and the section relating to Vermont as part of the Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society. Both sections were bound together as one pamphlet under the editorship of Dr. J. Franklin Jamieson, then professor of history in Brown University.
He at one time was Secretary and Treasurer of the American Institute of Instruction, President of the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction, President of the Sprague House Association, and for a period of ten years President of the Providence Franklin Society. He was a member of the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Sons of the American Revolution, and the Barnard Club. He was a Past Master of Washington Lodge, Number 3, A. F. and A. M., and a member of Temple Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, both of Warren. He was a Deacon of Union Congregational Church.
"Lewis H. Meader died May 31, 1925 at 1:30 a.m. His wife and four children, two nurses and Dr. Alexander M. Burgess were with him. He had been ill since Thanksgiving, 1924, with pernicious anemia, but otherwise his vital organs were sound up to the day before his death, say the doctors. His mind was clear always. He talked with me in the late afternoon before he died." - W. G, Meader.
On August 31, 1881 he married Mary Gammell Davol, who was born January 28, 1858 and died May 7, 1946 in Providence of cancer after a long illness. She was the daughter of Dr. William Haile Davol of Warren, RI. Her mother was Rebecca Whittemore Gammell, half sister of Professor Gammell of Brown University. Her ancestor William Davol was in Duxbury, MA in 1840, and his son Jonathan with forty-seven others was granted 5,000 acres of land to found a town to be called East Greenwich, RI, but he never settled there. The first of the Gammell family came to this country about 1740.
The children of Lewis Meader and Mary Davol were:
0589 i. William Granville Meader, born April 17, 1883 and died February 16, 1955.
0590 ii. Lewis Hamilton Meader, born January 25, 1886.
0591 iii. Percy Davol Meader, born January 9, 1890 and died unmarried on December 15, 1926.
0592 iv. Margaret Gammell Meader, born February 19, 1894.