Cowles Mead

Cowles Mead
Delegate-elect to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Mississippi Territory's at-large district
In office Not seated
Preceded by	William Lattimore
Succeeded by	George Poindexter (Representative)
Secretary of State of Mississippi
In office 1806–1807
Governor	Robert Williams
Preceded by	Thomas Hill Williams
Succeeded by	Thomas Hill Williams
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia's at-large district
In office March 4, 1805 – December 24, 1805
Preceded by	Samuel Hammond
Succeeded by	Thomas Spalding
Personal details
Born	(1776-10-18)October 18, 1776 Bedford County, Virginia, U.S.
Died	May 17, 1844(1844-05-17) (aged 67) Hinds County, Mississippi, U.S.
Political party	Democratic-Republican

Cowles Mead (October 18, 1776 – May 17, 1844) was a United States representative from Georgia. Born in Virginia, he received an English education and became a private practice lawyer.

He presented credentials as a member-elect to the 9th United States Congress (March 4, 1805 – December 24, 1805) but was replaced by Thomas Spalding who contested the initial election outcome. Mead then served as Secretary of the Mississippi Territory, 1806–1807; Acting Governor of Mississippi Territory, 1806–1807; and member of the Mississippi House of Representatives, 1807 and 1822–23.

He was unsuccessful candidate for election to the 13th United States Congress in 1812. He was a delegate to the first constitutional convention for setting up the new State of Mississippi in 1817. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the 16th United States Congress in 1818. He served in the Mississippi Senate in 1821. He was later the Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Mississippi state legislature, from 1823 to 1827. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for election as governor of Mississippi in 1825. He died 19 years later in 1844 on his Greenwood Plantation in Hinds County, Mississippi where he was buried.

An article published in 1849 described his involvement in the arrest of Aaron Burr and the writer's impression of Mead's character:

Connected with the early history of Jefferson county was the important and memorable arrest of Aaron Burr, for high treason, which happened while Gen. Mead was the acting Governor of the Territory of Mississippi, and gave much eclat to the brief administration of that worthy functionary, who, in after life, never failed, on all proper occasions, to refer with complacency to the time when he was Governor of Mississippi, and the valuable services rendered by him to the General Government, in arresting one, who, at that day, was looked upon as a disorganist, if not a traitor. Time may have changed the popular sentiment, touching the guilt of the highly gifted, ambitious, but disappointed aspirant for the highest honors of the nation. Gen. Mead, or rather Gov. Mead, (for he preferred the more pompous civil title,) merited great praise for the energy displayed on the occasion of Burr's arrest. It was one of those epochs in the life of man that stamps his destiny, and, if judiciously managed, will open the way to popular favor; but which too often deprives the fortunate individual of the little popularity he had already acquired. This was the case with Mead, whose head appeared to be completely turned by this little affair, which ever after was a theme upon which his memory appeared to dwell with unmingled pleasure. Mead was vain, pompous and superficial, and seldom looked beyond the narrow circle of which he was the self-constituted centre, unless it were to draw within his influence, those upon whom his high-sounding titles made a deeper impression, than this vapid grandiloquence.

References

• United States Congress. "Cowles Mead (id: M000614)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.