Meridith Miles Marmaduke (1791 - 1864)

Born 28 Aug 1791 in Westmoreland, Virginia, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Lavinia (Sappington) Marmaduke — married 1825 (to 1864) in Saline County, Missouri

Descendants

Died 26 Mar 1864 at age 72 in Saline, Missouri, United States

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Preceded by 7th Governor Thomas Reynolds

Meredith Miles Marmaduke 8th Governor of Missouri 1844

Succeeded by 9th Governor John Cummins Edwards

Biography

Meridith Marmaduke is Notable.

Meridith was a Democratic politician from the state of Missouri. He briefly served as Missouri's eighth Governor in 1844 following the suicide of Governor Thomas Reynolds. Marmaduke was also the sixth Lieutenant Governor of Missouri. Meridith M. Marmaduke was the father of John S. Marmaduke, a noted Confederate General during the American Civil War and later 25th Governor of Missouri.

He was educated in the Virginia public schools and was employed as a civil engineer until his career was interrupted by the War of 1812. During the war, despite being just twenty-two years of age, Marmaduke was commissioned as colonel of the regiment that was raised in his county.

Returning to Virginia after the war, Marmaduke was appointed United States Marshal for the Tidewater district of Virginia by President James Madison. He served for several years in that office until being elected clerk of the circuit court. In 1823, Meridith Marmaduke immigrated to Franklin, Missouri for his health. He held a variety of jobs including store clerking, managing a larg farm and working as a trader on the Santa Fe Trail. In 1826, he married Lavinia Sappington, the daughter of Dr. John Sappington, a prominent pioneer physician of Saline County famous for his use of quinine to treat malaria fever. For a brief time he became a partner with father-in-law's enterprises including a store in Arrow Rock, Missouri, a town he had platted in 1829 while surveyor for Saline County. Around 1835 he became a successful farmer on land not far from Arrow Rock where he and his wife raised their ten children (seven sons and three daughters).

A Jacksonian Democrat as well as a friend and supporter of Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, Meridith Marmaduke served as Saline County surveyor and county judge before being elected Lieutenant Governor of Missouri in 1840. His time in that role was relatively uneventful until the morning of February 9, 1844. It was on that day Governor Thomas Reynolds committed suicide. Assuming office as largely a caretaker for the final ten months remaining in the Governors term, nonetheless Marmaduke set the stage for major changes in the treatment of the mentally ill. In one of his final messages to the state legislature he strongly urged them to establish in the vernacular of the time, a lunatic asylum for the housing and treatment of those with mental illness. One of his other acts as Governor likely cost him a chance to win election to the office in his own right. Marmaduke, himself a slaveholder, refused to pardon three abolitionists who had helped escaped slaves. Angered by his refusal, Missouri Democratic Party leaders bypassed Marmaduke as their candidate in the 1844 election and instead chose the eventual winner, John C. Edwards.

Even before the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter Meridith Marmaduke found himself at odds with friends and family. Much like his friend Senator Benton, Marmaduke's views on slavery had begun to change in the late 1840s. This led to a business and personal estrangement between Marmaduke and his father-in-law, Dr. Sappington, and brother-in-law, future Missouri Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson. Once the war began Marmaduke was a fierce Union supporter. Going against his wishes, four of Marmaduke's sons would fight for the South, with two of them dying in the cause. One son, Confederate General John Sappington Marmaduke would survive the war and later become Missouri's 25th governor (1885-1887). Another, Henry Hungerford Marmaduke, served as a gunner in the Confederate Navy aboard the ironclad Merrimac in its historic clash with the USS Monitor. Meridith Marmaduke himself would not live to see the end of the Civil War. He died at his home on March 26, 1864 and was buried at Sappington Cemetery State Historic Site near Arrow Rock, Missouri.

Sources

• www.records.ancestry.com and www.wikipedia.org/Meridith_Miles_Marmaduke.

• Find A Grave Memorial# 11993

• Meredith Miles Marmaduke on Wikipedia

• "United States Census (Slave Schedule), 1850 ", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:HRWS-5G6Z : 23 February 2021), Meroditte M Marmaduke in entry for MM9.1.1/MVZZ-Z5H:, 1850.
• "United States Census (Slave Schedule), 1860", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:WKPK-47MM : 16 October 2019), M M Marmaduke, 1860.