William Meadows is a brick and tile manufacturer of Burlington but leaves the active management of the business to his sons, for he is now well advanced in years and deserves to enjoy the rest which he has truly earned. He was born in Lancashire, England, July 6, 1833, a son of George and Elizabeth (Greenwood) Meadows. The father, who come of an old English family, was foreman of a cotton manufacturing company of England, where he remained until 1842, when he came to the United States and settled at Burlington Flats, Otsego County, New York, bringing the family to the new world the following year. His brother William, who was in the same line of business, accompanied him and later they formed a company and engaged in the manufacture of bed ticking, etc. They leased a factory which had been idle and, equipping it, they continued in the business for two years, after which they removed to Rome, Oneida County, New York, where they carried on business for four and a half years, but at the end of that time they suffered heavy losses from fire. With their respective families they then removed to Utica and in the fall of 1849 William Meadows became a resident of East Troy, Walworth County, Wisconsin. Returning the same fall, he brought his family to this state and his brother accompanied them. The following spring George Meadows returned and brought his family to this state. William Meadows had located on a farm and George. Meadows purchased a farm situated a mile and a half east of Burlington, there residing for four and a half years. In 1855, with the building of a railroad through the district, he sold that place and bought a farm of three hundred acres in the eastern part of Walworth County, Wisconsin, making his home thereon until he retired, when he disposed of the property to his son and spent the last years of his life in the enjoyment of a well earned rest. He brought up his family of three sons and five daughters under strictly moral teachings, instilling into their minds the most honorable principles. He taught them that they must never evade responsibility, must at all times live up to their agreements and must ever be thoroughly honest and reliable, and his own career was an example to them in these respects. He died in 1884 at the ripe old age of eighty years.
William Meadows, whose name introduces this review, was in his ninth year when he came across the ocean with the family to the United States. He had attended a private, school in England and he continued his education in Rome, New York, and in Burlington, Wisconsin. He remained with his parents until he attained his majority, in the year 1854, and he then engaged in farm work in Racine County, two miles east of Union Grove. His employer had been an old friend of the family in England and had come to America some years before the arrival of the Meadows. While thus engaged William Meadows formed the acquaintance of Abraham Hayes, who later attained prominence, and with James Wolfington, and in partnership they purchased a threshing machine at an expense of three hundred dollars, this partnership continuing for six years. At the end of that time Mr. Meadows purchased the interests of the others and removed to Lyons, Racine County. He afterward sold the old machine and purchased a new threshing outfit in 1860 from the J. I. Case Company. This he continued to operate for fourteen years and was engaged altogether for twenty years in that line of work. In 1865 he added the buying of wool, which he could carry on when there was no threshing to be done, and he continued to buy wool until 1914. He conducted that business on an extensive scale so that at times the value of the wool which he held would be affected to the extent of a thousand dollars by a rise or fall of one cent in price. In 1887 he purchased the brick and tile plant erected by Buchan Brothers the previous year and has since owned the business, which is located on White river, the outlet of Geneva Lake. The plant is operated by steam power and the business is proving a profitable and growing one.
On the 26th of September,. 1859, Mr. Meadows was united in marriage to Miss Ann Armstrong, who was born in Belfast, Ireland, a daughter of John Armstrong, who was of English birth and became a jeweler. He remained in Ireland for many years. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Meadows are as follows: George Cyrus has made his home since 1883 at Ipswich, Edmunds County, South Dakota, where he is engaged in banking. William John is located in Elgin. Illinois, where he manages one of the Borden Condensed milk plants. Elizabeth Jane is now the wife of Richard Hetherington, of East Orange, New Jersey, who is in charge of one of the Borden plants in New York City. Mrs. Meadows passed away in 1912, after a happy married life of fifty-two years. She and her husband long held membership in the Methodist church, of which they were most liberal supporters.
The first public office which Mr. Meadows ever filled was that of roadmaster of the town of Lyons and later he was elected treasurer of the school board. He was next elected chairman of the town board of Lyons and as such became a member of the board of education, in which capacity he continued for several years. In 1880 he was elected to the state legislature and in 1883 he was elected an alternate to the national convention, the other being H. A. Cooper, the present congressman, and it was at this convention that James O. Blaine was nominated. On various other occasions Mr. Meadows has served as a delegate to public conventions and for two years he filled the office of councilor when the city government was formed. He is a Mason, belonging to the lodge, chapter and commandery and also to the Milwaukee consistory and the Mystic Shrine in that city. He has ever been recognized as a good citizen, a devoted husband and father and a man of spotless character, who, having attained the eighty-third milestone on life’s journey. can look back over the past without regret.