Meares, William Belvidere, 1826-1896.

William Belvidere Meares was a physician and planter of Davidson County, N.C.

William Belvidere Meares (1826-1896), physician and planter of Davidson County, N.C., was the fifth son of Catherine Grady Davis and William Belvidere Meares (1787-1841) of Wilmington, N.C. Meares was educated at the Bingham School in Hillsborough and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1846. After he received a medical degree from Jefferson College in Philadelphia, he returned to Wilmington. In 1850, Meares married Mary Thomas Exum (1833-1883) of Northampton County, N.C. Mary Thomas Exum Meares's sister Martha married Matt W. (Matthew Whitaker) Ransom (1826-1904).

William Belvidere Meares volunteered for service in the Confederate Army and was commissioned in June 1861 as assistant surgeon of the 20th North Carolina Regiment. Meares transferred to the staff of his brother-in-law, General Matt Ransom, and served throughout the rest of the war as Ransom's aide-de-camp. In May 1862, William Belvidere Meares moved his family from Wilmington to Davidson County, N.C., where he purchased a plantation that had previously belonged to Governor John W. Ellis. When the war ended, the family chose to remain there rather than return to Wilmington.

William Belvidere Meares and Mary Thomas Exum Meares had seven children: William (b. 1853), Esther Exum (b. 1854), Anastasia (1855-1900), Frederick P. (b. 1858), Gaston (b. 1862), Joseph Exum (1864-1954), and Edward G. (b. 1874).

Joseph Exum Meares married Amanda Antoinette Adickes (1878-1966) in 1901. They had two daughters, Anastasia ( Annis ) Lafayette Meares (1902-1993) and Emily Adickes Meares (1905-1991). Anastasia Meares married Harry Watson Gordon (1904-1943), who was manager of the J. Walter Thompson Company of South America, the largest advertising agency in Argentina. Emily Adickes Meares married Dewey Wilbur Zimmerman (1898-1976).