Meredith, Georgia S.
Item
- Connection to Legacies of American Slavery Database
- Name
- One-line bio
- Biography
- Date of Birth
- Date of Death
- Historical Period
- Related Person(s)
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Meredith, Georgia S.
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Georgia Meredith is the wife of Meredith College namesake, Thomas Meredith.
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Georgia Sears was born in 1804 to George and Mary Sears. Her father died at sea when Georgia was still a baby. After George’s death, Georgia was raised in Edenton, NC by her mother, Mary Sears, and her stepfather, William Hancock, along with her sister, Elizabeth. There she met Thomas Meredith as a school girl, and married him in 1819. In 1830, Georgia and Thomas Meredith owned eight enslaved persons and by 1850, they only owned four. It seems probable that Georgia and Thomas Meredith became slaveholders via a wedding gift. Throughout their marriage, Georgia gave birth to eleven children, three of whom died in infancy. After Thomas Meredith’s death in 1850, Georgia was in charge of selling Thomas’ estate and took over the Biblical Recorder until 1857. Thomas' will makes no provision for freeing the enslaved, and calls for even asset shares between Georgia and most of their children. Given the absence of evidence for emancipation, it is likely that the family's slaves were sold and the profits split between heirs. After 1857, Georgia and her daughter, Cordelia, moved from Raleigh to Atlanta, Georgia where she lived until her passing on April 21, 1872.
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1804
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April 21, 1872
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