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DESCRIPTIVE INVENTORY
OF THE
MEAD FAMILY PAPERS
All the Meads who created documents in the collections were
descendants of William Mead, who immigrated from England in 1635 and ultimately
settled in Stamford, Connecticut. The more important collection was developed
by the family of George Washington Mead (1827-1899), a Brooklyn lawyer,
banker, and landowner. This family was extraordinarily close-knit, corresponding
extensively among themselves, and it was rooted in Mead Street in Waccabuc,
where their parents had established a summer residence in the year after
their marriage. By the time George W. Mead died the family owned nearly
1,500 acres of land, part of which was arable and made up farmsteads for
summer or year-round use, while about half was rugged mountain land north
of the lake. The ultimate dispersal of this tract is documented in the
collection and provides a remarkable case study of Westchester County’s
transition to suburb.
The Mead Family Papers collection carries throughout strong themes of
family dynamics and the sense of place, perhaps more so than in most such
collections, and at 120 boxes and 281 bound volume manuscripts it is a
collection with critical mass.