Andrew Meloan (1754-1834)
MSA SC 3520-16802
Biography:
Andrew Meloan was born on February 18, 1754, possibly in Cecil County. [1] At age twenty-one, in early 1776, Meloan enlisted as a private in Edward Veazey's Seventh Independent Company. [2] He was a five foot, seven inch tall man. Since he was listed as twenty-one-year-old, this means he enlisted before his birthday in February. Many of those in the Seventh Independent Company were recruited from Kent, Cecil, and Queen Anne counties, and were in the twenties. [3] Overall, the average age was about twenty-five, but soldiers born in British America were younger than those from foreign countries, even though they were roughly the same height. [4]
The independent companies, early in the war, had a different role than the William Smallwood's First Maryland Regiment. They had the role of securing the Chesapeake Bay's shoreline from British attack. Smallwood's regiment, on the other hand, were raised as full-time Maryland soldiers as part of the Continental Army, and were divided between Annapolis and Baltimore. The company was stationed in Kent County's Chestertown and Queen Anne County's Kent Island. [5] During this time, Veazey was uneasy they did not receive "arms nor ammunition" by April of that year, material they did not receive until June. [6]
While the independent companies were originally intended to defend Maryland, three of them accompanied the First Maryland Regiment when it marched up to New York in July 1776. The transfer of the independent companies to the Continental Army showed that Maryland was more than willing to do its part to recruit the men needed. [7] The independent companies and the First Maryland Regiment arrived in New York in early August, with the Battle of Brooklyn set between the Continental Army and the British Army, joined by their Hessian allies.
Meloan served with his company at the Battle of Brooklyn in late August 1776. Apart with the companies of Daniel Bowie and Peter Adams, which suffered heavy casualties, sixty-eight percent of Veazey's company were killed, wounded or captured. Specifically, Captain Veazey died on the battlefield while Second Lieutenant Samuel Turbett Wright and Third Lieutenant Edward De Coursey were captured. As a result of Veazey's death, Lieutenant William Harrison took charge of the company. After the battle, only about 36 men remained out of the original force of over 100. [8] The loss of life confirmed the assessment of the British Parliament's Annual Register which described how "almost a whole regiment from Maryland…of young men from the best families in the country was cut to pieces" even as the battle brought the men of the Maryland 400 together. [9]
The Battle of Brooklyn, the first large-scale battle of the war, fits into the larger context of the Revolutionary War. If the Maryland Line had not stood and fought the British, enabling the rest of the Continental Army to escape, then the Continental Army would been decimated, resulting in the end of the Revolutionary War. This heroic stand gave the regiment the nickname of the Old Line and those who made the stand in the battle are remembered as the Maryland 400.
Meloan survived the Battle of Brooklyn and was not taken prisoner. In the fall of 1776 and early 1777, he joined other Marylanders at the battles of White Plains, Trenton, Princeton, and elsewhere.
By the spring of 1777, the Seventh Independent Company was in disarray as Wright and De Coursey were prisoners, Veazey had been killed, and Harrison had resigned. [10] As a result, the company, among with the other independent companies, became part of the Second Maryland Regiment. On January 10, 1777, Meloan enlisted as a private in Captain Samuel T. Wright's company of the Second Maryland Regiment and had the duty as a waggoner for a short time. [11] On February 1, 1778, Meloan became a corporal in the Second Maryland Regiment. He stayed in the regiment until he was discharged on January 10, 1780. [12] Meloan fought at Staten Island (1777), Brandywine (1777), Germantown (1777), Monmouth (1778), and Stony Point (1779).
As a non-commissioned officer, Meloan would have shouldered some of the responsibility for ensuring order in camp and on the battlefield. The job of the corporals was to instruct their troops, keep order in their regiments, including breaking up disagreements between soldiers, and taking roll call every morning. [13] If corporals fell down on their tasks, they were "severly punished." [14] During battles, corporals were responsible for keeping the companies lined up and together so they could effectively fight against British or forces loyal to the Crown.
After his military service, Meloan settled down in Maryland. In 1781 or 1782 he married a woman in her late twenties, named Rachel Zilerfrow, in Cecil County. [15] This was Rachel's second marriage, as she had three children with her first husband, John Zilerfrow. Through the following years, Andrew and Rachel would have eight children: Permelia (1782-1839), Thomas (b. 1784), Elizabeth (1786- 1869), Andrew Jr. (b. 1788), Izabel (b. 1790), Obediah (1792-1859), Alexander (1794-1798), and Perry O. (1797-1833). [16] They lived in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina in the 1790s, and Meloan owned a 60 acre plot of land, near McDowell Creek, by June 1799. [17] By the early 1800s, they moved to Kentucky.
In 1810, Meloan, Rachel, and their children, were living in Montgomery County, Kentucky and were small slaveowners and farmers, owning three enslaved blacks. [18] They lived there until at least 1830 and continued to be small slaveowners. Meloan owned four enslaved blacks in 1820 and six enslaved blacks in 1830. [19] The county, during this time period, was majority white, but had a significant minority of enslaved blacks, an average of about 2,233 living in the county, from 1810 to 1830. [20] Other aspects of their lives, during this time, are not known.
Meloan and his son Obediah were active members of the Republican Party, at a time that the party was dissolving. In 1828, they signed a letter which criticized President John Quincy Adams. It was among those assembled by a member of the Republican Party and former U.S. Representative David Trimble to prove statements he had made in 1824 and 1825. [21]
Sometime after 1831, Meloan, his wife Rachel, and their children, moved across the state and were living in Murray, a town in Calloway County, Kentucky, a county of about 5,100, which was over 91 percent white. [22] Meloan applied for his Federal veterans pension in 1832, when he owned enslaved blacks, which was granted the same year. [23]
On August 14, 1834, Meloan died in Calloway County. [24] After his death, his wife, Rachel, fought for her husband's pension money. The pension was granted, and she continued to receive it until her death on July 29, 1839. Twenty-one years after her death, her children Thomas, Elizabeth, and Obadiah applied for their father's pension benefits. [25] At this point, these were the only children of Rachel and Meloan who were still living. By 1894, the Meloan family was still living in Calloway County in a homestead on the lot that Meloan had bought years ago, and had a "burying ground" in a local cemetary in the city of Murray. [26]
- Burkely Hermann, Maryland Society of the Sons of American Revolution Research Fellow, 2016.
Notes
[1] Pension of Andrew Meloan, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land-Warrant Application Files, National Archives, NARA M804, Record Group 15, Roll 1709, pension number W27972. Courtesy of Fold3.com. Since he enlisted in Cecil County, it is possible he was born in the same county. His name is sometimes spelled Melone, Malone, Maloan, Melawn, Milean, Meloon, and Miloan.
[2] Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, Descriptions of men in Capt. Edward Veazey’s Independent Comp, 1776, MdHR 19970-15-36/01 [MSA S997-15-36, 1/7/3/13]; Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 18, 28; Mark Andrew Tacyn, “'To the End:’ The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution” (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 34; Pension of Andrew Meloan.
[3] Tacyn, 24-25, 97.
[4] For more information, see "Demographics in the First Maryland Regiment" on the Finding the Maryland 400 research blog.
[5] Journal and Correspondence of the Maryland Council of Safety, July 7-December 31, 1776, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 12, 4; Tacyn, 33-34.
[6] Journal and Correspondence of the Maryland Council of Safety, August 29, 1775 to July 6, 1776, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 11, 318, 468; Tacyn, 37, 39.
[7] Arthur Alexander, "How Maryland Tried to Raise Her Continental Quotas." Maryland Historical Magazine 42, no. 3 (1947), 187-188, 196.
[8] Revolutionary War Rolls, NARA M246, p. 92, From Fold3.com; Tacyn, 98.
[9] Tacyn, 4.
[10] List of Regular Officers by Chamberlaine, December 1776, Maryland State Papers, Red Books, MdHR 4573, Liber 12, p. 66 [MSA S989-17, 1/6/4/5].
[11] Pension of Andrew Meloan; Service Card of Andrew Melawn, Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, Record Group 93, Roll 0400; Second Maryland Regiment, 1778, Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783; NARA M246, War Department Collection of Revolutionary War Records, Record Group 93. Courtesy of Ancestry.com.
[12] Service Card of Andrew Melawn; Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 18, 138, 405; Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Maryland, 1789-1793, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 72, 239; Pension of Andrew Meloan; Second Maryland Regiment, 1778, Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783; NARA M246, War Department Collection of Revolutionary War Records, Record Group 93. Courtesy of Ancestry.com. In his pension application, Meloan said he left the service in 1780, meaning that Andrew Mallone who enlisted in the Fifth Maryland Regiment in 1781 was not him.
[14] Stueben, 72.
[15] Pension of Andrew Meloan; Parish register 1694-1784, St. Stephen's Church Collection, p. 131 [MSA SC 2507-1-1, 0/8/4/14]; A Calendar of Delaware Wills New Castle County 1682-1800 (New York, NY, USA: Frederick H. Hitchcock, 1911), 87; Jacob Ozier as a witness, 1796, Delaware, Land Records, 1677–194, p. 346, Recorder of Deeds, New Castle County, RG 2555, Subgroup 000, Series 011. Delaware Public Archives, Dover, Delaware. Courtesy of Ancestry.com. Rachel's maiden name, before her first husband was Ozier. She was born on May 23, 1753 in Cecil County's St. Stephen's Protestant Episcopal Church in North Sassafras Parish to John Ozier, who died in 1777, and Sarah. She also had a brother named Jacob Ozier, born on November 22, 1754, who was living in Delaware in 1796. Her Find A Grave says she was born in 1763 but this is clearly a mistake.
[16] Pension of Andrew Meloan; Kentucky. Kentucky Birth, Marriage and Death Records – Microfilm (1852-1910). Microfilm rolls #994027-994058. Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, Kentucky. Courtesy of Ancestry.com. Permelia later married Robert Caldwell, Obediah married Emily W. Shruggs, and Elizabeth married Andrew Lackridge Jr. Meloan's son.
[17] "Clarification," Murray Ledger & Times, May 31, 2006. Accessed October 11, 2016; Grant for Andrew Meloan, June 2, 1799, grant number 154, book 105, page 31, North Carolina Land Grants, Microfilm publication, 770 rolls, North Carolina State Archives. Courtesy of Ancestry.com.
[18] Census for Montgomery, Kentucky, 1810, Third Census of the United States, NARA M252, Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29, Roll 7, Page 365. Courtesy of Ancestry.com;
[19] Census for Montgomery, Kentucky, 1820, Fourth Census of the United States, NARA M33, Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29, Roll M33_25, Page 255, 257. Courtesy of Ancestry.com; Census for Montgomery, Kentucky, 1830, Fifth Census of the United States, NARA M19, Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29, Roll 40, Page 17. Courtesy of Ancestry.com.
[20] Census of 1830 for Montgomery County, Universe: Total Population, Social Explorer Dataset, Social Explorer. Accessed October 11, 2016; Census of 1820 for Montgomery County, Universe: Total Population, Social Explorer Dataset, Social Explorer. Accessed October 11, 2016; Census of 1810 for Montgomery County, Universe: Total Population, Social Explorer Dataset, Social Explorer. Accessed October 11, 2016. Data shows the number of enslaved blacks in the county growing from 1810 to 1830.
[21] "From the Kentucky Argus: David Trimble," United States Telegraph, Washington, D.C., October 27, 1828, Vol. III, issue 125, p. 2; United States Telegraph, Washington, D.C., October 25, 1828, p. 4.
[22] Census of 1830 for Calloway County, Total Population (SE:T025_001), Social Explorer Dataset, Social Explorer. Accessed October 11, 2016.
[23] Pension of Andrew Meloan.
[24] Record of Andrew Melone, 1834, United States Revolutionary War Pension Payment Ledgers, 1818-1872, Kentucky, United States, NARA T718, roll 8; FHL microfilm 1,319,388, p. 242. Courtesy of Familysearch.org; Record for Andrew Melone, Final Payment Vouchers Index for Military Pensions, 1818-1864, Index to Selected Final Payment Vouchers, 1818-1864, National Archives, Record Group 217, roll: box06_00008. Courtesy of Fold3.com.
[25] Pension of Andrew Meloan. Obediah, Andrew's son, was the administrator of Rachel's estate after her death.
[26] Will of P.O Meloan, 1894, Kentucky County, District and Probate Courts, Calloway, Kentucky, Wills, Vol D-G, 1885-1961, p. 108-110. Courtesy of Ancestry.com.
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