David Meade, born in Nansemond County, Virginia, in 1744, is an example of a Virginian who prospered by taking up a new life out west. He came from a family well-enough off to educate him in England, and it seems that David Meade could have spent his life successfully in the Old Dominion. He married into a prominent family, served briefly in the House of Burgesses, and inherited his father's large plantation in Prince George County. David Meade seemed to be established in Virginia in contrast to James and Elizabeth McClure who had hardly made a beginning.
Yet, in 1796, at age 52, David Meade picked up the family and many of his slaves to head west, specifically in the infant state of Kentucky, where he had purchased 370 acres a year earlier. With the exhausted soil of his plantation yielding less and less every year, combined with a general economic decline in Virginia, Meade was easily persuaded by the glowing reports of fertile land and prosperity west of the Appalachians, as told by a son who went ahead of him. Loading his family, slaves, and worldly goods onto three wagons, Meade left his native land in early June for the month-long journey to Kentucky.
Meade faced different problems in traveling than the McClures did. Expenses were much higher than he had expected, into the thousands of pounds. In Kentucky he rented a home for ten months while building a log home to serve his immediate needs. He prospered and began to recover his expenses. As time went by, he made his place into a showcase. He lived for another twenty-five years and became a devoted propagandist for Kentucky, and urged his friends in Virginia to make the move. Meade's move had been the right decision for him. He bettered his lot in life, unlike the McClures.
David Meade was not alone. Virginia lost some of its best people such as George Rogers Clark, Lewis and Clark, William Henry Harrison, Henry Clay, Stephen Austin, Sam Houston, Jim Bridger, James Denver, Jesse Leo Reno, Cyrus McCormick, and George Caleb Bingham to name a few. Or, consider Abraham Lincoln, a Virginia farmer in Rockingham County. He beget Thomas, who beget another Abraham within the framework of western movements.
One historian has called this great migration the " Bleeding of Virginia ". Starting with Jamestown, the more ambitious and aggressive settlers pushed west. Alexander Spotswood, and the Germans that he imported, were a part of this, too, as they occupied the extreme frontier positions at times. Kentucky and Tennessee were the immediate result of this western expansion of Virginia.
[Charles F. Byran, Jr., " Away, I'm Bound Away: Virginia and the Westward Movement ," Beyond Germanna , v. 6, n. 3]
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.