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Note: N777 Richard Terrell Meriwether
© The Meriwethers and their Connections, 1964
He left the family homestead [in Virginia] about 1812 and emigrated to Montgomery County, Tenn. He married 1813 Elizabeth Rivers (1796-1863), a daughter of Capt. Thomas Rivers and Elizabeth Edmonds, whose family had emigrated from Virginia in 1808-1810 and settled in Montgomery County, eight miles north of Clarksville, Tenn., on the Hopkinsville Road. Richard Terrell and Elizabeth Rivers Meriwether made their home in that general area. Tradition says "Cabin Row", Christian County, Kentucky, which of course, is nearby, until 1827, when they moved to Madrid Bend (now Lake County, Tenn.), where their family of five daughters and one son grew to adulthood. He died in 1840 and his wife in 1863. Both are buried in Cronanville Graveyard, two miles north of Tiptonville, Tenn. Their descendants now live near Tiptonville, Paragould and Conway, Arkansas, Chicago, Memphis, Tampa, Fla., Long Island, N. Y., Kentucky, California and Massachusetts and other states.
The colorful life of the pioneer family in the then wilderness of Madrid Bend is interestingly documented by the diary of Margaret Griffis, a talented Philadelphian, who was engaged in 1858 as teacher and governess for the grandchildren of Elizabeth Rivers Meriwether, and who lived with the family for about a year. A great-grandson, R. C. Donaldson (1877-1961), who became historian of Madrid Bend and Lake County, was permitted to edit and annotate the Griffis diary prior to its publication in serial form in the "Lake County Banner" issue July 3, 1959 to March 2, 1960, inclusive. His "notes" accompanying the Feb. 11, 1858 diary entry state:
The pioneer house (Meriwether) described above is reputed to be the first residence erected in what is now Lake County, when it was a primeval wilderness. Until the Jackson treaty with Chickasaw Indians in 1818, white men were not allowed to settle west of the Tennessee River. Only nine years thereafter Richard Terrell Meriwether, of Virginia, the husband of Mrs. Elizabeth Rivers Meriwether of the diary, came to Madrid Ben in search of good land and found what suited him. According to the Goodspeed History of Tennessee this was in 1827. As soon as Richard Meriwether (b. Mar 11, 1792, d. Dec 7, 1840) could locate the owners, he purchased two grants aggregating 370 acres, fronting on the Mississippi a distance of one and one half miles and extending down to the site of old Tiptonville. One was from G. W. L. Marr for 320 acres and the other C. M. F. Marr for 50 acres.
With his negroes and equipment brought overland from Montgomery County, Tenn., he proceeded to build log cabins and the main house described in the diary. After clearing some land and having everything in readiness, he loaded his family and effects on a flat boat and floated down the Cumberland, the Ohio and Mississippi to the new home about a mile north of old Tiptonville.
A little later additional adjoining lands were acquired, so that at the time of the diary, according to the records, the plantation had 1127 acres (of which about 500 acres were then in cultivation according to "Uncle John" Thompson who was born on the place). Similar notes accompanying the Aug. 31, 1858 diary entry reveal interesting family characteristics:
The last paragraph confirms a family tradition to the effect that Richard Meriwether was a rugged individualist of definite opinions. He had no use for rocking chairs and allowed none in the house. [Must have had republican leanings--NHM]. Moreover he did not choose to have boy friends of his five daughters hanging around the place. Result: as long as he lived rocking chairs and beaux were ruled out.
When Richard died in 1840, his wife Elizabeth took over, with different views, and the girls lost no time in acquiring rocking chairs and by the same token beaux. In natural sequence husbands followed. The married names of the daughters were: Betty Donaldson, Martha Thompson, Peggy Isler, Jeannie Westbrook and "Bob" Isler, all of whom are frequently mentioned in the diary.
After Richard's death in 1840, his widow had no easy road to travel, in managing the large plantation and providing education for her grandchildren. Miss Griffis noted elsewhere in her diary (Aug. 31, 1858), "Mrs. Meriwether was over the plantation, first in one place then in another. She is the most active old lady I ever saw in my life, and has an excellent mind for business." (Note: Margaret Griffis was nineteen years old when she wrote the 1858 diary of her experiences with the Meriwether family. Afterwards she had a varied and interesting career as a teacher and traveler. Her younger brother William Elliot Griffis graduated from Rutgers U. 1869, went to Japan in 1870 to teach chemistry and physics, one of the first foreigners to see the interior of that country before the end of the feudal era. Later he taught in Tokyo and his sister joined him in 1872 and was a teacher of young Japanese nobles who were desirous of learning English. When they returned in 1874 to America, her brother published "The Mikado's Empire," under the Harper imprint, which remained in print until 1923. His sister, Margaret, died at his home in Ithaca, N. Y., 1913.)
The Civil War brought tragic complications, as it did for many other Southern plantation owners. One of her sons-in-laws, "Capt. Billie" Isler was killed at the Battle of Belmont, Mo. in 1861. Another, W. Donaldson, died in defense of Island No. 10. Her grown grandsons and all able-bodied men in the community were away in the Confederate army. Following the fall of Island No. 10 in 1862, Madrid Bend was quickly overrun by Federal forces under command of Col. Slack. It was he who was involved in the flag incident (recorded by R. C. Donaldson in the Lake Co. Banner of Sept. 17, 1957) with the sprightly "Bob" Meriwether, widow of J. P. Isler.
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