David Meriwether, Mariner
© The Meriwether Society, Inc.

David Meriwether was born 5 Oct 1716 in Hanover County, the second son and child of David Meriwether and Anne Holmes. On 5 December 1734 Nicholas Meriwether II signed a deed granting land to his grandsons Thomas and David. This is the only known direct evidence that David was a descendant of Nicholas Meriwether.

David became a seaman, eventually commanding a number of merchant vessels sailing between Virginia and England. Apprenticeship records in Virginia and England have not been located, but by 1741 David was an acknowledged sailing master. In 1742 and 1743 he commanded the “Tiger” or “Tiger Galley”. In 1745 he assumed command of the “Lillie” and from the late 1760s to his death he commanded the “York”.

David married Mary Weaver on 20 Jun 1743 in Yazor Parish, Herefordshire, England, and they lived a number of years in Bristol, where the first few of their children were born. In the early 1750s they moved back to Virginia where the remainder of his children are believed to have been born, although his wife and several children returned to Bristol before her death in 1767.

David died 23 Aug 1772 on board his ship “York” sailing from Yorktowne, Virginia, to Bristol, England, and was buried at sea.

Birth
According to the “mutilated register” copied by Griffith, David was born 5 Oct 1726. However, this conflicts with indirect evidence that David was much older. His 20 Jun 1743 marriage certificate states he was 26, indicating a birthdate of late 1716, early 1717. It appears that the birth years of David and brother Francis may have been reversed in early Meriwether genealogies.

Death
David died at sea seven days out of York Town enroute to Bristol, England.

The Boston Gazette (Boston, Massachusetts), 2 July 1759

Capt. Meriwether Arrives in Boston
Capt. Meriweather who arrived here last Friday, in 8 weeks and 2 days from Bristol, we have an English Print of the 28th of April, from which we have extracted the following…

The Pennsylvania Gazette, 26 May 1768

Capt. Merriweather & The York Sail from Bristol
Bristol, March 5, Sailed, The York, Merriweather, for Virginia.

Boston News-Letter and New England Chronicle, 13 October 1768

Capt. Merriweather’s York Disabled
A letter from Capt. Brown, who is arrived at North Carolina from this place, mentions that on his passage thither, the 19th of August, in Lat. 38. 30. Long. 69. 46 he met with the ship York, Capt. Merriweather, bound from Virginia to Bristol, who in the morning of that day left his main and mizen mast, in a violent gale of wind, or rather, hurricane, and then lay as a wreck upon the water.

Deeds Linking David to Nicholas Meriwether II

Referred to in most Meriwether genealogies as "Sailor David", though it is doubtful if he himself went by this name. Some have suggested referring to him as Captain David, as he did in fact own and captain a ship.

On 5 December 1734 Nicholas Meriwether II signed a deed granting land to his grandsons Thomas and David. This is the only known direct evidence that “Sailor” David was a direct descendant of Nicholas Meriwether.

A 1752 Louisa Co. deed which describes him as David Meriwether, Mariner, of Bristol, England.127

In 1753 and 1757 he was in Virginia, and in 1758 he gave a Power of Attorney saying he was returning to Great Britain.

In 1777, Thomas Meriwether made a deed as heir of David Meriwether, deceased.

He is known to have captained two ships, the Lilly and the York.

Timeline for David:

22 Oct 1742: Tiger, D.M., lading at Bristol for VA.
8 Jan 1742/3: Tiger Galley, D.M., entered York River from Bristol.
5 May 1743: Tyger Galley, D.M., cleared York River, VA, for Bristol.
20 Jun 1743: David applied for a marriage license at the Hereford Diocese office in the town of Hereford, more than 50 miles from Bristol.
20 Jun 1743: David and Mary married in the parish church at Yazor (supposedly before noon), about 7 miles from Hereford.
23 Apr 1745: Took command of “Lillie” in Virginia.
15 Nov 1747: Death of James Merryweather in Leominster Parish
8 Jan 1760/1: Baptism of David Jr. (“David, the son of David Meriwether and Mary his wife, having been privately baptized at Bristol was received in the church here.”)
29 Sep 1764: 25 March 1766: Paid Poor Taxes in Bristol, St. Augustine-the-less parish.

Activity in 1740s

From the following timeline we can see that David Meriwether was a very busy man:

22 Oct 1742: Tiger, D.M., lading at Bristol for VA.
8 Jan 1742/3: Tiger Galley, D.M., entered York River from Bristol.
5 May 1743: Tyger Galley, D.M., cleared York River, VA, for Bristol.
20 June 1743: David applied for a marriage license at the Hereford Diocese office in the town of Hereford, more than 50 miles from Bristol.
20 June 1743: David and Mary married in the parish church at Yazor (supposedly before noon), about 7 miles from Hereford.

There are no known sailing records for David from the time of their marriage until 23 April 1745 when he took command in Virginia of the ship Lillie.

Perhaps he brought Mary back to Virginia to meet his relatives or because his father and grandfather were ailing.

Deed Explanations by Maury

The second deed doesn't mention the son involved, but gives land to GSs Thomas and David.  These would appear to be David's sons.  Of course, Thomas, might have been William's son, but one would think if that were so he would have included it in the first deed above. In any case, the remarkable issue here is that, and I think for the first time, we have direct evidence stating David, son of David, is of our line.  I suspect the Englishs would appreciate that.  The paper appears to be dated the same as the one above [5th?] day of December 1734.  In addition, this would appear to add weight to the matter of David's order of birth.  Thomas and David could be the oldest sons of David.

Source???

From: "David English" <daveng@worldnet.att.net
To: "Rebecca Meriwether" <Meri100w@hotmail.com
Subject: GOOD NEWS
Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 09:19:57 -0700

Dear Rebecca:

Hope you are well. We are doing fine and working hard on our genealogy.

As you know, we have been searching for several years for the marriage record of Sailor David Meriwether and Mary Weaver, and also any births of their children. Consequently, we searched all 20 of Bristol’s old parish registers, page-by-page and line-by-line, as well as the adjoining parishes in Gloucester and Somerset counties. We also searched many other records for the area.

Surprise! - they were married by license in Herefordshire, Yazor parish church, 20 June 1743. We have copies of the parish register, marriage bond and allegation, and marriage license book. The parish register says that he was “-of the city of Bristol” and that Mary was “-of Leominster parish, Herefordshire.” The marriage bond and allegation say that David was “- of St. Jacob’s parish, Bristol City,” and that Mary was “- of Stoke-Prior parish, Herefordshire.” Stoke-Prior is adjacent to Leominster and was a very low population parish as was Yazor. The marriage allegation and bond are both signed by David in his very distinctive handwriting as seen on the ship muster rolls. The allegation gives David’s age as 26 and Mary’s as “about 20” years. The license was issued on the same day as their marriage which is surprising as the law regarding licenses was that the parties were supposed to be married before noon in the parish church. The pastor probably was sympathetic as you will see from the distances and timeline given below. The license permitted David to avoid going to Mary’s home parish church for three consecutive Sundays for the calling of the Banns. The marriage bond was marked on the film as “poor original” as part is obliterated by water damage or dampness so that the name of the bondsman cannot be read. Other bonds of that period mostly had the bridegroom and one other person listed with security of 100 lbs sterling. We were hoping that the bondsman would be Mary’s father or brother.

We also found the baptismal record of David, son of Sailor David and Mary, on 8 Jan 1760 in the Yazor parish register. It reads “David, the son of David Meriwether and Mary his wife, having been privately baptized at Bristol was received in the church here.” The Bishop’s Transcripts say merely that he was baptized. No other Meriwethers were found in the Yazor parish register. Mary must have had some sentimental connection to Yazor.

Yazor is about 50 miles directly north of Bristol, but it would have been much further for them because there were no bridges across the Severn River channel. There was a turnpike (wagon road) system by about 1731 and the map shows that a coach from Bristol would go east towards the city of Gloucester and then north to the town of Hereford. Yazor is about 7 miles west of Hereford, and Leominster is about 12 miles north of Hereford. Stoke-Prior is adjacent to Leominster. It is interesting to note that Herefordshire borders Brecon and Radnor, Wales on the east, and Monmouth on the SE. Leominster is about 12 miles to the Radnor border.

From the following timeline we can see that David Meriwether was a very busy man:

22 Oct 1742: Tiger, D.M., lading at Bristol for VA.
8 Jan 1742: Tiger Galley, D.M., entered York River from Bristol.
5 May 1743: Tyger Galley, D.M., cleared York River, VA, for Bristol.
20 June 1743: David applied for a marriage license at the Hereford Diocese office in the town of Hereford, more than 50 miles from Bristol.
20 June 1743: David and Mary married in the parish church at Yazor (supposedly before noon), about 7 miles from Hereford.

There are no known sailing records for David from the time of their marriage until 23 April 1745 when he took command in Virginia of the ship Lillie.

Perhaps he brought Mary back to Virginia to meet his relatives or because his father and grandfather were ailing.

All of our recent research has been done either at the LDS library at Salt Lake or the local family history center. We ran into Chad Milliner, formerly of Rod Stucker & Assoc., at Salt Lake in April and we had a long talk with him about English research.The Salt Lake library does not have a copy of the Leominster original parish register but they do have a film of the Bishop’s Transcripts. The BT’s are in bad condition, with many pages torn away, faded or otherwise illegible. Nevertheless, we are still studying the film searching for the baptism of Mary Weaver about 1720-1725, as well as searching for other Weavers and any Mereiwethers.

We did find an intriguing item: Buried 15 Nov 1747 - James Merryweather. Could this have been an early son of David and Mary. It was fairly common for English families of that period to use the name of a deceased child for a later child. I have a family who had two Roberts die and a third survive to adulthood. Robert was the name of the maternal g-father.

Film copies of the original parish register of Leominster are at the Hereford record office and the Society Of Genealogists in London. A copy of the Stoke-Prior parish register is at Salt Lake and we have requested that it be sent to a local family history center for us to search. We are making arrangements to have a researcher search the Leominster register at the Hereford county records office for Mary’s baptism and for any possible children of David and Mary. If the James Merryweather was a child, the original register should give the names of the parents, whereas the BT’s may did not.

Other research news - We found David Meriwether listed in the poor-rate books of Bristol St. Augustine-the-less parish where he paid poor taxes for 29 Sep 1764 - 25 March 1766. His address was listed as Trinity Street and he was listed both as Capt. David and just David. There is a gap in the records after March 1766 to 29 Sep 1769, and that seems to be the only gap for the period which we searched(1750-1773). In light of the above record, we re-examined the parish register for the burial of Mary Meriwether 7 Oct 1767. We now believe her address was Trinity Street and not Trinity Precinct as we had stated before. It is almost certain that this is Mary Weaver and that she was buried in the churchyard there. Money was paid to the parish for her burial.

Recall that Sailor David’s estate was probated in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 23 Dec 1772. and that the administration was granted to "Jenny Meriwether, spinster, the natural and lawful daughter of the deceased." We are certain this is Sailor David as the record says "-late master of the merchant ship York-". Does anyone know anything at all about Jenny (probably Jane) and what happened to her? We searched for marriages for Jane and Jenny Meriwether after the above date and found none.

How did David and Mary meet? As far as we know, Herefordshire was mostly agricultural at that time with very little mining or industry. Could David have been visiting relatives there or in Wales??

We need to correct the information from the published histories regarding David’s birthdate to 1716/17 instead of 1726. This is more compatible with him commanding a ship as master in 1741 as the maritime records show. We have not yet found an apprenticeship record although we searched many nationwide and Bristol records.

If you want copies of the recently found record records or have any comments, please contact us. We're sorry we can't attend the reunion.

Warmest regards,

Dave and Faye CC: Meredith Patterson,
Linda Ethridge

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Mary (Weaver) Meriwether
© The Meriwether Society, Inc.

Mary was born 10 Apr 1722 in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, the daughter of James Weaver and Elizabeth Nickols of England. No further information has been found on her parents and early life.

She married Capt. David Meriwether in Yzor Parish in 1643; she was the mother of seven known children, some of whom were born in England and others in Virginia.

In the early 1750s the family moved to Virginia for a while, though Mary had moved back to Bristol prior to her death in 1767. A biography of her youngest son, William, claims she was returning to England for health reasons and died during the voayge, but this does not seem to be correct. She was buried at the Saint Augustine-the-less Parish Church Cemetery on 7 Oct 1767.

Before leaving Virginia, family lore states that she gave each of her children gifts, one of which was a portrait of her as a small child. Family members still own this portrait.

Following indicates Mary died at sea while returning to England:

Following is from a source not clearly identified but dealing with Dr. George Meriwether, youngest son of David and Mary:

“His father moved from Wales to Virginia where William was born in 1762.

While an infant he was taken to England with his mother for her health. She died on the voyage. He remained there and received his medical training in Europe. He returned to America and continued his studies in Philadelphia, PA. and finally settled in Powhatan County, VA. About 1788 he moved to Amelia County, VA. where he lived at Chestnut Row, also known as Chestnut Lane. He was a pioneer in agriculture and made several contributions. He was the first man in history to use a turning plow and he advocated plaster of Paris as a fertilizer. He left a horticultural diary 1803-1814.

Gabriel Weaver, (brother to Mary Weaver) who died in 1791 and bequeathed money to his nephew William Merryweather also bequeathed annuities to his sister Martha Eales and to his niece Elizabeth Sophia Eales. To his friends John Woodhouse and Thomas Prosser, Gabriel also bequeathed land and money among other things. No other persons are mentioned in Gabriel’s will. 128

Date: 7/4/01 8:28 PM
From: Becky Meriwether, meri100w@hotmail.com
To: Faye & David English, daveng@worldnet.att.net

From: meri100w@hotmail.com (R Meriwether)
To: daveng@worldnet.att.net

David: I recall you telling me that you had seen correspondence between one of David’s fellow-Captains or one of his business associates and his widow. If so this would mean that the Mary who died in 1767 wasn't David’s wife. If not, it could be a daughter. Can you help me reconstruct this?

Marriage of David Meriwether and Mary Weaver 119

David and Mary were married on 20 June 1743 in the Yazor parish church in Herefordshire. Their license had been issued in the Hereford Diocese office in the town of Hereford, more than 50 miles from Bristol.

David and Mary were living in Virginia in 1757, as they are the witnesses to the Will of Robert Lewis. In 1765 when the Will was probated it was stated that David and Mary were “now beyond the Sea residing in the Kingdom of Great Bretaine…”

MARR **MOSV 1 v4 p295 and Louisa Will Book, p387; GRG states he married in England. PPP has 1751.

Colson states they were married in England. She has a sixth child, Robert, born abt 1750 in Louisa County, Virginia.

---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------------
Date: 7/18/01 6:47 PM
Received: 7/18/01 7:15 PM
From: R Meriwether, meri100w@hotmail.com
To: Faye & David English, daveng@worldnet.att.net

David & Faye: Again, fantastic work! Sounds like you probably HAVE found Mary’s birth record. Particularly given the naming traditions. If the buried James was a first son, this would fit perfectly.

Thanks for reminding me about the "widow" I remembered. This all makes sense.

Thanks for agreeing to do another Connections article when the time is right.


From: "David English" <daveng@worldnet.att.net
To: "Rebecca Meriwether" <Meri100w@hotmail.com
Subject: YOUR QUESTIONS AND MORE
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 22:07:29 -0700

July 16, 2001

Hello Becky:

Subject: Your questions and more

This is in response to your questions of 4 July. I am sorry for the delay.

1. We will write another newsletter article about our recent findings but we would like to wait until we find Mary Weaver’s birthplace and parents (see below).

2. Re: mention of a widow of Capt. David after he died at sea in 1772 - See MC Vol. XVI, No. 4, Oct - Dec. 1997. Perhaps you are thinking of Capt. George Walker, commander of the York from 1755 to 1766. When he died in VA in 1766, John Snelson wrote several letters to his widow in Bristol. Capt. David carried the letters and Walker’s personal effects to Bristol on the Rialto. Snelson was a VA merchant and agent for Edward Harford, Jr., merchant of Bristol who owned the York. In contrast, after Capt. David died at sea in 1772, Snelson wrote at least 4 letters to Harford in which he mentioned Capt. Meriwether, but did not mention a widow in any of them. He did mention children. In addition, if Mary were still alive at that time, she almost certainly would have been named admrtrx. of David’s estate instead of daughter Jenny. If Mary were unable to perform the duties required because of sickness or something like that it probably would have been mentioned in the proceedings. In addition, the fact that both David M.’s address in the poor rate books and Mary M.’s address in the St. Augustine burial record is listed as Trinity Street gives me a high degree of confidence that this is Mary Weaver.

3. We had a professional researcher search the original Leominster parish register at the Hereford record office since we know of no copy here in the US. The instructions were to search the register for all Weaver entries for 1720-25, and all Meriwether entries for 1743-54. We received the results last week - No baptismal record for Mary Weaver and the James Meriwether burial in 1747 was the only Meriwether entry. As in the BT’s there is no mention that James is a child of - - -. No other information is given. I can't recall seeing a parish register burial entry for a child where at least the father wasn't mentioned. So the question remains - was he a child of David and Mary or an adult from another Meriwether family? There are several Weaver marriages and baptisms but they don't mean much to us until we can find Mary’s birth. Another setback - we got a copy of the Stoke-Prior parish register from the Morman library at Salt Lake and a quick preliminary search yielded no baptism of Mary Weaver and no Meriwether entries. Going back to the marriage bond and allegation and the marriage entry in the Yazor parish register - they say "of" Leominster and "of" Stoke-Prior which means only that her residence was there when the marriage took place. She could have been born anywhere. But with Hereford being an agricultural area, it doesn't seem that families of means would be moving around very much. We have hopes of finding her baptism in one of the adjoining parishes. Notice that the marriage bond says they were supposed to be married in the Stoke-Prior parish church.

There is another possible reason we didn't find Mary’s baptism - that is, if her family were dissenters and thus not members of the Church of England. Although the IGI has very few extracted Church of England registers, it does have several extracted congregational registers. One entry reads: Mary Weaver, chr. 15 April 1722, Independent, Leominster, Hereford, England; father: James Weaver, mother: Elizabeth.

In the 13 volume set "National Index of Parish Registers," by D.J. Steel, Soc. Of Genealogists, London, is listed Eign Brook Congregational Church, Leominster formerly at Wye Bridge. A small book of baptism and burials survives although the congregation does not. This church book is in the PRO and has been filmed by the LDS library at Salt Lake. Lewis' Topographical Dictionary lists only one Wye Bridge (in Surrey or Sussex) but none in Hereford. The birth date fits and the church was in Leominster. We will look at this film to see if it gives any more information. The IGI also lists other children of the same parents baptized in that church: Gabriel, Chr. 1 Aug. 1720; James, chr. 26 July 1725.

We have been thinking about how David and Mary met. Other possibilities besides David’s relatives are - 1) Perhaps Mary’s father or brother was a mariner friend of David’s. 2). Perhaps her father or brother delivered agricultural products to Bristol for ship provisions and victuals, or David may have gone to Hereford to pick them up.

Another question is who raised the younger children after Mary’s death and where did they live? David was only 7 and James 12. We know that they were in VA at various times because John Snelson mentioned "the children are always hanging about him," supposedly at the wharves or on the ships.

4. You asked how we found the marriage license. Several years ago, we searched the bonds for Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester from 1735 to 1755, bond by bond, and we failed to find David’s after several days of searching. About 9 months ago, the Morman library made available a series of CDs called Vital Records Indexes, one for the British Isles as I explained in an earlier E-mail. I kept putting off searching them until a couple of months ago and there was David Meriwether! We got the films of the actual records from the Salt Lake library and the film nos. are written on the copies we sent. There seems to be very few Hereford records on the web. I use GenUKI for England http://www.genuki.org.uk/ Also, Cyndi’s List htp://www.cyndislist.com/ has lots of links to the British Isles. You found the Hereford record office web site which I have searched too. Have you checked the LDS site at htp://www.familysearch.org/ ? You can access the IGI, Ancestral File and the Morman library card catalog from it.

One more note: Miss Smith, wife of David (DS) is no longer just Miss Smith. We have a Greene Co. GA deed from her father, Charles Smith which deeds slaves to "-my daughter Susanna Meriwether, wife of David Meriwether." (Others believed her name was Patty but without any hard evidence.) Enough for now!

Regards--Dave and Faye


----------------- End Forwarded Message -----------------

Sailor David Meriwether and Mary Weaver did indeed have a daughter Elizabeth Maria, baptized in 1749, Bristol St. James parish church, the same parish David listed as his residence on his marriage bond and allegation. We have a copy of the baptismal record, just found several months ago (I can't get to our files right now so I don't have the exact date in front of me). We will send it later.

By the way, David died at sea seven days out of York Town en route to Bristol, 23 Aug 1772 not 1773.

Mary was buried at Bristol St. Augustine-the- less parish church, 7 Oct 1767. It is almost a certainty that this was Mary Weaver because David was listed in the St Augustine poor rate tax books for several years before that date.

There was also another daughter Jenny about whom we know almost nothing . David died intestate and his estate was probated in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury Dec 1772, as was the custom for mariners an soldiers. The administration proceedings state in part----"Jenny Meriwether, the lawful and legal daughter of Capt. David Meriwether, is appointed Administrix of his"-----.

Dave and Faye English
29 Apr 2002

David Meriwether & Mary Weaver

David applied for a marriage license at the Hereford Diocese office in the town of Hereford, more than 50 miles from Bristol.

TMSI members David and Faye English spent considerable time and effort researching David and Mary. Here is their discovery of the marriage of David and Mary:

As you know, we have been searching for several years for the marriage record of Sailor David Meriwether and Mary Weaver, and also any births of their children. Consequently, we searched all 20 of Bristol's old parish registers, page-by-page and line-by-line, as well as the adjoining parishes in Gloucester and Somerset counties. We also searched many other records for the area.

Surprise! - they were married by license in Herefordshire, Yazor parish church, 20 June 1743. We have copies of the parish register, marriage bond and allegation, and marriage license book. The parish register says that he was "-of the city of Bristol" and that Mary was "-of Leominster parish, Herefordshire." The marriage bond and allegation say that David was "- of St. Jacob’s parish, Bristol City," and that Mary was "- of Stoke-Prior parish, Herefordshire." Stoke-Prior is adjacent to Leominster and was a very low population parish as was Yazor.

The marriage allegation and bond are both signed by David in his very distinctive handwriting as seen on the ship muster rolls. The allegation gives David’s age as 26 and Mary's as "about 20" years. The license was issued on the same day as their marriage which is surprising as the law regarding licenses was that the parties were supposed to be married before noon in the parish church. The pastor probably was sympathetic as you will see from the distances and timeline given below. The license permitted David to avoid going to Mary’s home parish church for three consecutive Sundays for the calling of the Banns. The marriage bond was marked on the film as “poor original” as part is obliterated by water damage or dampness so that the name of the bondsman cannot be read. Other bonds of that period mostly had the bridegroom and one other person listed with security of 100 lbs sterling. We were hoping that the bondsman would be Mary’s father or brother.