Stortford

Mead in Bishops Stortford, 1500 - 1640

From Hertfordshire to Hempstead

The English county of Hertfordshire is about 630 square miles - almost exactly the same size as Fairfield County, Connecticut. While it is reasonable to assume that all Meads born in colonial Fairfield County were related, there were several unrelated Mead families in Hertfordshire. And sometimes unrelated Meads migrated along similar paths and ended up in the same place. This was the case with John Mead of Watford and Joan Mead of Bishops Stortford, also in Hertfordshire. Both lived in Hempstead, Long Island, in the 1650s.

Bishops Stortford is a small town in eastern Hertfordshire on the river Stort. Thomas Mede is first mentioned in the churchwardens' accounts of St Michaels in Bishops Stortford in 1517, when he paid two pence rent for "the tenement that Harry Wood dwells in." Possibly he was the son of William Mede who owed suit of court in 1499 at the manorial court of Pyggots or Pecottes in Stortford.

Born in around 1490, Thomas Mede paid rent of a penny a year until 1542. In 1534-35 he paid a penny "for rent of his kechyn in Northstrete." In 1543-45 John Snowe paid a penny for Thomas Mede's rent and in 1545-47 "mother Tuftnale and mother Mede paid four pence for their rent," so Thomas Mede must have died in around 1545. Joan Mede, widow, paid rent of a penny in 1555-56 and two pence in 1556-57; she must have been Thomas Mede's wife.

Thomas Mede probably had two sons. In the lay subsidy roll of 1545 there were two Thomas Medes and Robert, the son of Thomas. One Thomas Mede paid a penny and the other paid 14 pence in tax, while Robert paid 2d.

Thomas Meade "of Hockerill in the parish of Stortford in the county of Hertford, husbandman," made his will in June 1552. He was apparently quite young, since he had just one child and another possibly on the way, so he was probably born in the 1520s. He left over 10 pounds in legacies, including 5 pounds for his daughter Lucy and another 5 pounds for his unborn child. His widow's name was Julian.

In 1557-58 Robert Mede paid rent of two pence in Stortford. In the 1560s he lived in the adjacent parish of Thorley. In his will, proved in 1571, he mentioned his wife Joan, two sons, Edward and Harry, and a daughter, Johanna. Several children had died young. In March 1561/2, John Meade the son of Robert Meade, plowwright, was buried in Stortford. Two John Meades, twin sons of Robert Meade, were baptized and buried in November 1567 in Thorley. Robert Meade was buried in December 1570, as were his son Ezechial and daugher Joan.

During Queen Elizabeth's reign, there were several Meads in Stortford, but it's not possible to connect them. In 1568, Thomas Meade married Isabel Worley; Agnes Meade and Thomas Cock got married in 1579; Richard Mead married Jane Miller in 1587; and in 1594 Susanna Meade married Thomas Gase. In the Feet of Fines in 1583, John Meade and Thomas Burlinge made a deal involving a cottage and land in Stortford. In 1601, in the will of John Miller of Stortford, he mentioned his brothers-in-law Richard Mead and John Mead, and a meadow purchased from Thomas Mead. In 1606 Edward Willey sold a croft called Windell Meade to John Meade.

In 1641, a marriage license was issued so that Edward Totnan, gent, of St. Andrew in the Wardrobe, London, bachelor, 26, and Joane Meade of Bishops Stortford, 20, daughter of Thomas Meade, gent, could get married at Bishops Stortford. Soon after 1644, Edward and Joan Totnan or Totten emigrated to Hempstead NY, where they lived at least until the 1650s.

John Mead, the son of William Mead of Stamford, also lived in Hempstead NY for a few years in the 1650s. In the spring of 1657, John moved across Long Island Sound to Hempstead. In a tax record of 1658 in Hempstead, John had two cows. In the fall of 1660, John moved back across the Sound to Greenwich.

John Mead and Joan Mead Totten must have met - Hempstead was not a big town. Perhaps they talked about their families. Who knows, maybe they were related, way back when.