JOSEPH P. MEADOWS, whose landed interests comprise seven hundred acres in Grayson county, was born in Tennessee in 1853. His paternal grandfather was Solomon Meadows, who married Miss Lucinda Davis and both were descendants of old Virginian families. Adolphus Meadows, father of our subject, was born in Tennessee and served as a soldier in the Mexican war and also as a member of the Confederate Army in the Civil War. He devoted his entire life to farming and remained a resident of Tennessee up to the time of his death, which occurred when he was seventy-one years of age. His wife survived him for a number of years and died when seventy-two or seventy-three years of age, passing away in 1901.
Joseph P. Meadows remained a resident of Tennessee until eighteen years of age and during that period acquired a fair English education. He then came to Texas, settling in Grayson county near White Mound, and about twenty-six years ago he removed to Preston Bend in the northern part of the county, where he now owns seven hundred acres of valuable land. Much of this he rents on shares and the tract is devoted largely to the production of cotton. Mr. Meadows also owns and conducts a cotton gin and is one of the leading farmers and progressive business men of his part of the county.
In 1881 was celebrated the marriage of Joseph P. Meadows and Miss Alice Thompson, a native of Preston, and they have two sons: Exey and Ernest, both born in Preston. Mr. Meadows is a member of the Fraternal Union of America and gives his political allegiance to the Democracy. As the years have gone by he has worked earnestly and persistently and has found that labor is the basis of all success and that prosperity is ambition’s answer.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, p. 689.