Mertz Genealogy - Person Sheet
Mertz Genealogy - Person Sheet
NameSarah Meredith 
Birth9 January 1733
Death19 June 1813, NC
FatherJoseph Meredith
MotherElizabeth Arnull
Spouses
Birth24 February 1726, Bertie Precinct, NC
Death4 April 1803, Sampson Co, NC1021
FatherJohn Herring Jr. (~1701-<1774)
MotherRebecca Loftin (~1706-)
Marriage21 February 1752
Research notes for Sarah Meredith
Croom says married about 1760. The Pensions book confirms this marriage but says it was about 1770.
My Comments notes for Sarah Meredith
When I first started to research the Herrings, I found and used the first version of “Herring Highlights” which said that Richard’s wife was named Sarah Anders, a name that appears in several other sources, as well. But then a later edition of the Herring book says that someone found a bible record apparently recorded by Mary Herring, the daughter of Richard and Sarah, stating quite clearly that her mother was Sarah Meredith.
I found a copy of that bible record and it is quite interesting because it leaves no doubt as to the identity of Richard’s wife, but it also gives the birth date of both Richard and Sarah in “old style” and “new style”. (See the Bass chapter for a discussion of the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1752 and its impact on genealogical dates.) Mary’s bible says, for example, about Richard:
“Born 10 Feb 1725 old style, 21 Feb 1726 new style died 4 Apr 1803 age 77 years 1 month 11 days.”
I can follow these date references but many times I use my computer to do the calendar arithmetic (part of many genealogy programs). It makes me wonder, though, how people trying to keep a bible record especially that spans the 1750’s kept it all straight without a computer.
Sarah Meredith was born 1 Jan 1733 (new style) and died 19 Jun 1813. I know she lived in Sampson County when she died but I am unsure as to her “geographic” history. The Herring information seems to imply that the Herrings lived in Bertie County until 1753 when they moved to Sampson/New Hanover. And Richard and Sarah married in 1752, but I cannot find that Sarah actually ever lived in Bertie County, so this may be a case where the 1752 calendar change is confusing the inferred chronology. Sarah’s father was Joseph, as she was named in his will.
I found a copy of that bible record and it is quite interesting because it leaves no doubt as to the identity of Richard’s wife, but it also gives the birth date of both Richard and Sarah in “old style” and “new style”. (See the Bass chapter for a discussion of the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1752 and its impact on genealogical dates.) Mary’s bible says, for example, about Richard:
“Born 10 Feb 1725 old style, 21 Feb 1726 new style died 4 Apr 1803 age 77 years 1 month 11 days.”
I can follow these date references but many times I use my computer to do the calendar arithmetic (part of many genealogy programs). It makes me wonder, though, how people trying to keep a bible record especially that spans the 1750’s kept it all straight without a computer.
Sarah Meredith was born 1 Jan 1733 (new style) and died 19 Jun 1813. I know she lived in Sampson County when she died but I am unsure as to her “geographic” history. The Herring information seems to imply that the Herrings lived in Bertie County until 1753 when they moved to Sampson/New Hanover. And Richard and Sarah married in 1752, but I cannot find that Sarah actually ever lived in Bertie County, so this may be a case where the 1752 calendar change is confusing the inferred chronology. Sarah’s father was Joseph, as she was named in his will.
Relocated notes for Richard (Spouse 1)
Grew up in Craven-Johnston area and came to Clear Run with his parents.
Research notes for Richard (Spouse 1)
Summary of research. Some sources say Sarah Anders was his wife, but the updated Herring book says that they later found out it was Sarah Meredith. There is a lot of confusion on this subject. A 1752 date is given and a 1770 date. And in the Revolutionary Records book, it says his wife pre-deceased him but I have dates which make the opposite case.
Croom says he was born 23 Feb 1725/26. Date and place confirmed by book on Revolutionary pensions. I think there is simply an old stye/new style dating issue here.
On 4/24/1776, he was empowered by the Provincial Congress to establish an arms factory near the Herring home in the Black River area, Wilmington District. This is described in the Revolutionary War records book as being along NC 41 west of Black River in Duplin County (now Sampson County). There is a historical marker there now.
This same book describes him as one of the sons of John Herring Jr and wife Rebecca Loftin. And it says he owned a large plantation, and operated a general store, blacksmith shop and tannery. He financed the first school in Sampson County, opened 1 Mar 1783.
He was a Justice of the New Hanover Court in 1767 and in 1778 a Justice of the Duplin Court and instrumental in the founding of Sampson from Duplin in 1784.
THE OLD MIDDLE CAPE FEAR
I found an article that looks like it was published in some sort of scholarly journal by Randall Dosher, PhD entitled “The Old Middle Cape Fear in the Colonial and Antebellum Eras”. It talks about Richard Herring and John Devane. Here are some ”snippets” from that article.
While the Old Middle Cape Fear did not belong to the Cotton Kingdom and depended economically on the naval stores industry throughout its history, it was in many respects a microcosm of the Old South. In fact, the Old Middle Cape Fear was much more representative of the Old South than those enclaves – Tidewater, Virginia, the Charleston area and the lower Mississippi -- which still typify the Old South for so many people. If one seeks to know and understand the Old South, he must bypass the James, Ashley and Cooper Rivers and explore the Northeast Cape Fear, Black, South and Upper Cape Fear Rivers along whose banks and tributaries the society of the Old Middle Cape Fear lived in the colonial and antebellum eras.
In the first decade of the nineteenth century two sectional leaders in the American Revolution and public affairs pertinent to our present inquiry and residing in the Old Middle Cape Fear passed away: Richard Herring in 1803 and John Devane Sr. in 1806. ... [with others] Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. operated a Gun Manufactory in the Wilmington Military District until it was destroyed by the Tories. In 1777, Richard Herring signed the Oath of Allegiance and Abjuration in Duplin County, transferring his political loyalty from Great Britain to the newly created State of North Carolina. During the Revolutionary War John Devane Sr. served as a Militia Major....and as a delegate to the Halifax Provincial Congress, responsible for the Halifax Resolves. Before, during and after the Revolution Richard Herring was at various times a Justice of the Peace for Old New Hanover, Duplin and Sampson Counties. With the creation of Sampson County in 1784, he served as a Commissioner for the establishment of the town of Lisbon and for the seat of county government. ....In lesser capacities Richard Herring was a Deputy Surveyor and District School Superintendent, while John Devane Sr. held the office of vestryman in St. James Episcopal Church in Wilmington.
These are impressive credentials which amply attest that Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. were public-spirited and important men in the counties -- Old New Hanover, Bladen, Sampson and Duplin -- they served and in which they resided. And there can be no doubt that they were men of tested ability with a capacity for Leadership. But in their world personal qualities were less important in determining social and political prominence than certain economic factors which conferred status. Only when the wills of Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. as well as various tax lists and censuses are consulted, do we discover the basic explanation for their social and political prestige: they were men of substantial property in land and slaves. Land made men citizens, but land and slaves made them the best citizens. In the Middle Cape Fear there was no more central fact than these two particular types of property. Richard Herring owned at least 1,386 acres of riparian land in Duplin-Sampson and Old New Hanover Counties, while John Devane Sr. was “seized” of more than 1,100 bottomland tracts in Bladen and New Hanover Counties. In his will Richard Herring left 23 slaves; in the 1800 Bladen County census John Devane Sr. was listed owning 29 slaves.
Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. belonged to what historians have designated the planter class, men owning more than 500 acres of land and 20 or more slaves. But this planter class was more than just a particular economic group; it was also a ruling class, an oligarchy which controlled and directed Middle Cape Fear society from 1730 to 1865. In a traditional community such as the Old Middle Cape Fear a ruling class emerged when certain individuals and families came to exercise ownership and control over the major sectors of the local economy, or over what economists call the means and mode of production. The planter class of the Middle Cape Fear was a successful and enduring oligarchy until it collided head on with a society -- the Northern States -- holding antithetical values and standards rooted in capitalism and egalitarianism. ... .
... They did not invent the plantation economy, or slavery, or any of the dominant ideas and realities of their world. What they did do was to apply and extend these ideas and realities over the wilderness of the Old Middle Cape Fear and establish a society dominated early on by the plantation and slavery and kinship. By returning to the families related by descent and affinity to Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. it will become clear how the kinship system actually operated in this society. White our treatment must be limited and selective, it will illustrate the hegemony of the planter class as a ruling class imbedded in a cohesive and enduring order of kinship. The families associated with Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. were the ruling families of the Middle Cape Fear writ large.
Despite the democratic rhetoric of certain antebellum politicians and newspaper editors, the self-made planter seems to have been an exception in their society. Both Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. had what modern sociologists call a headstart in life. When their fathers -- John Herring and Thomas Devane I -- died (both in l774) they left substantial property in land and slaves. And as earlier deeds reveal, Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. received properties from their fathers prior to 1774. Nor did John Herring and Thomas Devane arrive as penniless pioneers in the Middle Cape Fear, but with assets from lands sold in other areas.
With these assets they purchased lands and slaves in the Old Middle Cape Fear and established themselves as planters in their society. Like all men of their class and time, John Herring and Thomas Devane manifested a strong acquisitive spirit for land and slaves on which their status and prestige rested....
Thomas Devane became one of the founders of Black River Chapel in Old New Hanover County, while John Herring served as a Vestryman of St. Gabriel’s Parish in Duplin County. Here are examples of the planter class in the making, well entrenched in the Middle Cape Fear by the 1750’s. John Devane Sr. and Richard Herring inherited these habits of thought and built on those foundations which were integrated and vitalized by a complex and diffuse network of kinship.
... Thomas Devane II ... his daughter, Margaret Devane, married William King ... They were the parents of William Rufus King. ...
Richard Herring married Sarah Meredith, a daughter of Joseph Meredith, Constable of the Welsh Tract. Three of their children, Enoch, Gabriel and Mary Herring, married three children of American Revolutionary Major Stephen Anders Sr. of Bladen County whose property in 1789 was valued at £2500, including 2,900 acres of land. In 1790, his widow, Catherine Anders, retained 12 slaves and the “mansion plantation” on South River....
Richard Herring’s brother-in-law, John Treadwell, a Revolutionary Major, owned 1,470 acres of land in 1784 and 20 slaves in 1790. Two of Richard Herring’s nephews, Samuel and John Hawes were Justices of the Peace for Old New Hanover County.
The rest of the article is about the importance and marriages of various descendants and in-laws and reads like European Royalty marrying other Royalty. I included the reference above to William Rufus King though the author failed to point out he was Vice President of the United States under Franklin Pierce.
Croom says he was born 23 Feb 1725/26. Date and place confirmed by book on Revolutionary pensions. I think there is simply an old stye/new style dating issue here.
On 4/24/1776, he was empowered by the Provincial Congress to establish an arms factory near the Herring home in the Black River area, Wilmington District. This is described in the Revolutionary War records book as being along NC 41 west of Black River in Duplin County (now Sampson County). There is a historical marker there now.
This same book describes him as one of the sons of John Herring Jr and wife Rebecca Loftin. And it says he owned a large plantation, and operated a general store, blacksmith shop and tannery. He financed the first school in Sampson County, opened 1 Mar 1783.
He was a Justice of the New Hanover Court in 1767 and in 1778 a Justice of the Duplin Court and instrumental in the founding of Sampson from Duplin in 1784.
THE OLD MIDDLE CAPE FEAR
I found an article that looks like it was published in some sort of scholarly journal by Randall Dosher, PhD entitled “The Old Middle Cape Fear in the Colonial and Antebellum Eras”. It talks about Richard Herring and John Devane. Here are some ”snippets” from that article.
While the Old Middle Cape Fear did not belong to the Cotton Kingdom and depended economically on the naval stores industry throughout its history, it was in many respects a microcosm of the Old South. In fact, the Old Middle Cape Fear was much more representative of the Old South than those enclaves – Tidewater, Virginia, the Charleston area and the lower Mississippi -- which still typify the Old South for so many people. If one seeks to know and understand the Old South, he must bypass the James, Ashley and Cooper Rivers and explore the Northeast Cape Fear, Black, South and Upper Cape Fear Rivers along whose banks and tributaries the society of the Old Middle Cape Fear lived in the colonial and antebellum eras.
In the first decade of the nineteenth century two sectional leaders in the American Revolution and public affairs pertinent to our present inquiry and residing in the Old Middle Cape Fear passed away: Richard Herring in 1803 and John Devane Sr. in 1806. ... [with others] Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. operated a Gun Manufactory in the Wilmington Military District until it was destroyed by the Tories. In 1777, Richard Herring signed the Oath of Allegiance and Abjuration in Duplin County, transferring his political loyalty from Great Britain to the newly created State of North Carolina. During the Revolutionary War John Devane Sr. served as a Militia Major....and as a delegate to the Halifax Provincial Congress, responsible for the Halifax Resolves. Before, during and after the Revolution Richard Herring was at various times a Justice of the Peace for Old New Hanover, Duplin and Sampson Counties. With the creation of Sampson County in 1784, he served as a Commissioner for the establishment of the town of Lisbon and for the seat of county government. ....In lesser capacities Richard Herring was a Deputy Surveyor and District School Superintendent, while John Devane Sr. held the office of vestryman in St. James Episcopal Church in Wilmington.
These are impressive credentials which amply attest that Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. were public-spirited and important men in the counties -- Old New Hanover, Bladen, Sampson and Duplin -- they served and in which they resided. And there can be no doubt that they were men of tested ability with a capacity for Leadership. But in their world personal qualities were less important in determining social and political prominence than certain economic factors which conferred status. Only when the wills of Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. as well as various tax lists and censuses are consulted, do we discover the basic explanation for their social and political prestige: they were men of substantial property in land and slaves. Land made men citizens, but land and slaves made them the best citizens. In the Middle Cape Fear there was no more central fact than these two particular types of property. Richard Herring owned at least 1,386 acres of riparian land in Duplin-Sampson and Old New Hanover Counties, while John Devane Sr. was “seized” of more than 1,100 bottomland tracts in Bladen and New Hanover Counties. In his will Richard Herring left 23 slaves; in the 1800 Bladen County census John Devane Sr. was listed owning 29 slaves.
Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. belonged to what historians have designated the planter class, men owning more than 500 acres of land and 20 or more slaves. But this planter class was more than just a particular economic group; it was also a ruling class, an oligarchy which controlled and directed Middle Cape Fear society from 1730 to 1865. In a traditional community such as the Old Middle Cape Fear a ruling class emerged when certain individuals and families came to exercise ownership and control over the major sectors of the local economy, or over what economists call the means and mode of production. The planter class of the Middle Cape Fear was a successful and enduring oligarchy until it collided head on with a society -- the Northern States -- holding antithetical values and standards rooted in capitalism and egalitarianism. ... .
... They did not invent the plantation economy, or slavery, or any of the dominant ideas and realities of their world. What they did do was to apply and extend these ideas and realities over the wilderness of the Old Middle Cape Fear and establish a society dominated early on by the plantation and slavery and kinship. By returning to the families related by descent and affinity to Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. it will become clear how the kinship system actually operated in this society. White our treatment must be limited and selective, it will illustrate the hegemony of the planter class as a ruling class imbedded in a cohesive and enduring order of kinship. The families associated with Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. were the ruling families of the Middle Cape Fear writ large.
Despite the democratic rhetoric of certain antebellum politicians and newspaper editors, the self-made planter seems to have been an exception in their society. Both Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. had what modern sociologists call a headstart in life. When their fathers -- John Herring and Thomas Devane I -- died (both in l774) they left substantial property in land and slaves. And as earlier deeds reveal, Richard Herring and John Devane Sr. received properties from their fathers prior to 1774. Nor did John Herring and Thomas Devane arrive as penniless pioneers in the Middle Cape Fear, but with assets from lands sold in other areas.
With these assets they purchased lands and slaves in the Old Middle Cape Fear and established themselves as planters in their society. Like all men of their class and time, John Herring and Thomas Devane manifested a strong acquisitive spirit for land and slaves on which their status and prestige rested....
Thomas Devane became one of the founders of Black River Chapel in Old New Hanover County, while John Herring served as a Vestryman of St. Gabriel’s Parish in Duplin County. Here are examples of the planter class in the making, well entrenched in the Middle Cape Fear by the 1750’s. John Devane Sr. and Richard Herring inherited these habits of thought and built on those foundations which were integrated and vitalized by a complex and diffuse network of kinship.
... Thomas Devane II ... his daughter, Margaret Devane, married William King ... They were the parents of William Rufus King. ...
Richard Herring married Sarah Meredith, a daughter of Joseph Meredith, Constable of the Welsh Tract. Three of their children, Enoch, Gabriel and Mary Herring, married three children of American Revolutionary Major Stephen Anders Sr. of Bladen County whose property in 1789 was valued at £2500, including 2,900 acres of land. In 1790, his widow, Catherine Anders, retained 12 slaves and the “mansion plantation” on South River....
Richard Herring’s brother-in-law, John Treadwell, a Revolutionary Major, owned 1,470 acres of land in 1784 and 20 slaves in 1790. Two of Richard Herring’s nephews, Samuel and John Hawes were Justices of the Peace for Old New Hanover County.
The rest of the article is about the importance and marriages of various descendants and in-laws and reads like European Royalty marrying other Royalty. I included the reference above to William Rufus King though the author failed to point out he was Vice President of the United States under Franklin Pierce.
My Comments notes for Richard (Spouse 1)
Richard Herring was born 23 Feb 1726 in Bertie County and married Sarah Meredith 21 Feb 1752 which apparently pre-dates the removal of the Herring family from Bertie to what is now Sampson County in about 1753. There he lived for most of his adult life and died there 4 Apr 1803.
Richard is listed on Revolutionary War rolls for providing patriotic service. He was not a soldier, I don’t think, but rather he is cited for operating a gun factory. Before and after the war, Richard was active in Sampson County life. He helped lay out the county seat, erect a court house and a jail. His will was written 3 Mar 1802 and names wife Sarah, sons John, Gabriel, Enoch and Stephen and daughters Mary and Ann.
Richard is listed on Revolutionary War rolls for providing patriotic service. He was not a soldier, I don’t think, but rather he is cited for operating a gun factory. Before and after the war, Richard was active in Sampson County life. He helped lay out the county seat, erect a court house and a jail. His will was written 3 Mar 1802 and names wife Sarah, sons John, Gabriel, Enoch and Stephen and daughters Mary and Ann.
Find-a-Grave notes for Richard (Spouse 1)