The last that remained of the lamented Avery Meriwether was committed to the bosom of mother earth yesterday afternoon in the quiet shades of Elmwood. The pallbearers were Messrs. Frazer T. Edmondson, Walter Gregory, Flint Gantt, Lee Thornton, L. W. Humes, Thomas M. Scruggs, Jno. D. Martin, and Jno. W. Currin, young members of the bar and personal friends of the deceased. The bar was largely represented, some thirty-five or forty members, or nearly all in the city, being present. There was still a larger attendance of other friends of the family. The coffin was lowered into the grave, and the pallbearers and other members of the bar shoveled in the fresh earth. When the little mound was finished, a number of sympathetic ladies stepped forward, and with tender, loving hands, fairly covered it with beautiful floral offerings. All was over, and all was done in honor of the dear departed young man. The last sad yet beautiful rites had been paid, and as the rays of a golden sunset illuminated the magnolias and monuments, evergreens and hillocks, the procession slowly left the cemetery and moved again toward the city of the living. - Obituary in Memphis, TN daily paper dated July 27, 1883
-----------------------------------------
Scimitar (Memphis, Tennessee)
July 23, 1883
Mr. Avery Meriwether of this city, and one of the editors of Meriwethers' Weekly, died yesterday morning at Waukesha, Wisconsin. He was a young man of energy, intelligence and influence, and will be missed by many, and mourned over by loving relatives. His example is one that should be copied by young men who desire to establish for themselves an honored and admired name, and we, knowing him, feel assured that his death will be regretted by all classes.
-----------------------------------------
"Recollections of 92 Years, 1824 - 1916"
by Elizabeth Avery Meriwether (mother of Avery)
I lost my first born, my darling son, Avery. How great this second blow was to me may be judged by the following extract from a letter which I wrote at the time of his death and which was published in the 'Memorial' number of 'Meriwether's Weekly,' the literary journal which my dear boy was editing and publishing during the last three years of his life. My boy died while away from home and after only a day's illness, on July 22nd, 1883, just a week after his twenty sixth birthday, and here is what I wrote the day after he was put away from me forever:
For twenty-six years he was the light of our home and our hearts! Our first born, our darling, our darling! We loved him, we love him yet, his father and I, more than life. His death has forever darkened our skies and hung our world in black. He was a boy no human could know with loving; tender, true, strong in moral purpose, always sunny, always joyous! He never entered our presence with a beaming face and never left us without a kiss. . . He hated tyranny and sympathized with the oppressed. His Ovum Vovo published in pamphlet form is a satire on a certain phase of American politics of no ordinary merit; had so fine a satire on English politics been published in London it would have won celebrity for its author. His pamphlet English Tyranny and Irish Suffering exhibits a grasp of the Irish Question which few older men posses. . . I call to my darling but he answers not. I stretch out my arms to embrace him, and I clasp only the empty air. Never again shall I hear his voice, never again feel the tender touch of his caresses! Oh how cruel, how cruel is death!"
A third of a century has passed since Avery's death; during those thirty three years other dear ones have been snatched from me, but the loss of the others was no such a blow to me as was the loss of my first born boy. In a glass gar on my desk before me as I write these lines is the little dress which I made for Avery when he was born; I have kept it all these years and wish it put beside me in my coffin when I die -- the little garment which I made fifty nine years ago for my first born, for my darling boy, for my tender and true and brilliant son!
-----------------------------------------
Booneville News (Booneville, Missouri)
August 17, 1883
Mr. Avery Meriwether, editor of Meriwether's Weekly of Memphis, Tennessee died of brain fever 22nd, July '83, at Waukesha Wisconsin. He was a young man only 26 years of age, a fine scholar and an able writer, a brilliant and shining light that all his friends looked upon and acknowledged him a leader in the journalistic world. Mrs. V.L. Minor of St. Louis, his aunt, once spoke to us of her two nephews, of their intelligence, industry and perseverance, and she was so happy and pleased to tell us of them, of their pure manly and noble traits of character and no mother could have shown her favorite off to better advantage. His brother five years younger and a junior partner, a good newspaper man and one devoted to his calling is so stricken with grief and disappointment that he feels unable to take the management of the paper alone, and proposes to sell. They were expecting to move to St. Louis to ran an illustrated paper and were to have begun the first of the month, and now nothing but blank despair seems to have settled upon the whole household upon the loss of their idol. She mentioned the Free Trader (Meriwether Weekly) as an interesting and desirable weekly published by them.
-----------------------------------------
Advance (Worthington, Minnesota)
Date unknown (died July 22, 1883)
Avery Meriwether, the publisher of Meriwether's Weekly, the best of the Southern library publications, died at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 22f. The paper suspended publication August 11th. His mother, in an editorial obituary, pours out her love and grief in a strain we have never seen surpassed unless it was in the wail of Geo. D. Prentice over his son Clarence, who was killed during the war. Avery Meriwether certainly was a young man worth bewailing. Brilliant, independent and able, if he had lived he would have taken a place in the front ranks of the Free-thought army. His mother says:
He left us so full of high hopes and ardent energies. We were to have followed him to St. Louis this Fall, and there make a home for him. But he has gone from us, and all now is darkness and desolation. I call to my darling, but he answers not. I stretch out my arms to enfold him, and clasp only empty air. Never again will I hear the loving tones of his voice, never again feel the tender touch of his caresses. My darling, my darling! Oh! How cruel, how cruel is death!
"Never again" is the best that the church of the materialist or the infidel can offer beyond a bare, bald hope. We sat for twenty years under the sermons of orthodox ministers, and we assert that it never was taught as a settled doctrine among them that we should meet and know our friends after death. Some believed it and taught it as probable, but none could do so with confidence. Bare hope, bare faith, is all the church of the materialist can offer.
The spiritualist offers demonstration, conviction, certainty to all who will investigate thoroughly. "Knock and it shall be opened," that is, the door will be opened so you can see the next world, "Seek and ye shall find" your so-called dead, alive, young, renewed, immortal.
-----------------------------------------
Chicago Radical Review (Chicago, Illinois)
Date unknown (died July 22, 1883)
Meriwether's Weekly, published at Memphis, Tenn., was one of the most welcome journals to our table. Its columns were permeated by a broad humanitarian spirit. Meriwether brothers, its editors and publishers, contemplated the removal of their paper to St. Louis, and were making active preparations to this end when the soul and life of the enterprise, Mr. Avery Meriwether, a young man of only 26 years, was laid low by death at Waukesha, Wis., whither he had gone for a few weeks rest and recreation. For one so young, Avery Meriwether had given great promises of future usefulness. Gifted beyond the common lot of men, he entered life's struggles with high hopes and aspirations. Besides his native tongue, he mastered German and French, and was familiar with the literature of these languages. His character and philosophy are described in the following stanza from a poem addressed to him two years ago by his friend, the poet Kenneth Lamar:
I knew thou wert in line and one with all who dare defy
A crowned, and mailed, and sceptered wrong—whate'er that wrong may be, Who own no master here below, no master in the sky, And who would break all bars and gyves, and bid the bond go free.
The Memphis Appeal speaks in the highest terms of the departed. "The gay butterflies of fashion," says this paper, "feared him because he discussed higher themes than the frivolity of social life." And again, "There was no young man in the South with a more brilliant future before him." And his mother, who is widely known as a writer, says of him: "His culture was wide and deep for one of his age. He was a bold thinker, never a time-server. He always hated tyranny and sympathized with the oppressed." Well might the world mourn with this bereaved mother over the death of such a youth. No wonder she cries out, "He is gone from us, and all now is darkness and desolation. **** Oh! how cruel, how cruel is death!" Though we never new Mr. Meriwether except through his paper, we feel his loss as a personal one, and sincerely sympathize with his grief-stricken family. The Weekly will not be continued. Minor Lee Meriwether, a younger brother and junior editor, writes: "I have neither the heart nor the ability to carry on his work without his aid and direction; I have not his ripe scholarship, his acquaintance with history, politics or science."
-----------------------------------------
Scimitar (Memphis, Tennessee)
July 23, 1883
Mr. Avery Meriwether of this city, and one of the editors of Meriwethers' Weekly, died yesterday morning at Waukesha, Wisconsin. He was a young man of energy, intelligence and influence, and will be missed by many, and mourned over by loving relatives. His example is one that should be copied by young men who desire to establish for themselves an honored and admired name, and we, knowing him, feel assured that his death will be regretted by all classes.
-----------------------------------------
"Recollections of 92 Years, 1824 - 1916"
by Elizabeth Avery Meriwether (mother of Avery)
I lost my first born, my darling son, Avery. How great this second blow was to me may be judged by the following extract from a letter which I wrote at the time of his death and which was published in the 'Memorial' number of 'Meriwether's Weekly,' the literary journal which my dear boy was editing and publishing during the last three years of his life. My boy died while away from home and after only a day's illness, on July 22nd, 1883, just a week after his twenty sixth birthday, and here is what I wrote the day after he was put away from me forever:
For twenty-six years he was the light of our home and our hearts! Our first born, our darling, our darling! We loved him, we love him yet, his father and I, more than life. His death has forever darkened our skies and hung our world in black. He was a boy no human could know with loving; tender, true, strong in moral purpose, always sunny, always joyous! He never entered our presence with a beaming face and never left us without a kiss. . . He hated tyranny and sympathized with the oppressed. His Ovum Vovo published in pamphlet form is a satire on a certain phase of American politics of no ordinary merit; had so fine a satire on English politics been published in London it would have won celebrity for its author. His pamphlet English Tyranny and Irish Suffering exhibits a grasp of the Irish Question which few older men posses. . . I call to my darling but he answers not. I stretch out my arms to embrace him, and I clasp only the empty air. Never again shall I hear his voice, never again feel the tender touch of his caresses! Oh how cruel, how cruel is death!"
A third of a century has passed since Avery's death; during those thirty three years other dear ones have been snatched from me, but the loss of the others was no such a blow to me as was the loss of my first born boy. In a glass gar on my desk before me as I write these lines is the little dress which I made for Avery when he was born; I have kept it all these years and wish it put beside me in my coffin when I die -- the little garment which I made fifty nine years ago for my first born, for my darling boy, for my tender and true and brilliant son!
-----------------------------------------
Booneville News (Booneville, Missouri)
August 17, 1883
Mr. Avery Meriwether, editor of Meriwether's Weekly of Memphis, Tennessee died of brain fever 22nd, July '83, at Waukesha Wisconsin. He was a young man only 26 years of age, a fine scholar and an able writer, a brilliant and shining light that all his friends looked upon and acknowledged him a leader in the journalistic world. Mrs. V.L. Minor of St. Louis, his aunt, once spoke to us of her two nephews, of their intelligence, industry and perseverance, and she was so happy and pleased to tell us of them, of their pure manly and noble traits of character and no mother could have shown her favorite off to better advantage. His brother five years younger and a junior partner, a good newspaper man and one devoted to his calling is so stricken with grief and disappointment that he feels unable to take the management of the paper alone, and proposes to sell. They were expecting to move to St. Louis to ran an illustrated paper and were to have begun the first of the month, and now nothing but blank despair seems to have settled upon the whole household upon the loss of their idol. She mentioned the Free Trader (Meriwether Weekly) as an interesting and desirable weekly published by them.
-----------------------------------------
Advance (Worthington, Minnesota)
Date unknown (died July 22, 1883)
Avery Meriwether, the publisher of Meriwether's Weekly, the best of the Southern library publications, died at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 22f. The paper suspended publication August 11th. His mother, in an editorial obituary, pours out her love and grief in a strain we have never seen surpassed unless it was in the wail of Geo. D. Prentice over his son Clarence, who was killed during the war. Avery Meriwether certainly was a young man worth bewailing. Brilliant, independent and able, if he had lived he would have taken a place in the front ranks of the Free-thought army. His mother says:
He left us so full of high hopes and ardent energies. We were to have followed him to St. Louis this Fall, and there make a home for him. But he has gone from us, and all now is darkness and desolation. I call to my darling, but he answers not. I stretch out my arms to enfold him, and clasp only empty air. Never again will I hear the loving tones of his voice, never again feel the tender touch of his caresses. My darling, my darling! Oh! How cruel, how cruel is death!
"Never again" is the best that the church of the materialist or the infidel can offer beyond a bare, bald hope. We sat for twenty years under the sermons of orthodox ministers, and we assert that it never was taught as a settled doctrine among them that we should meet and know our friends after death. Some believed it and taught it as probable, but none could do so with confidence. Bare hope, bare faith, is all the church of the materialist can offer.
The spiritualist offers demonstration, conviction, certainty to all who will investigate thoroughly. "Knock and it shall be opened," that is, the door will be opened so you can see the next world, "Seek and ye shall find" your so-called dead, alive, young, renewed, immortal.
-----------------------------------------
Chicago Radical Review (Chicago, Illinois)
Date unknown (died July 22, 1883)
Meriwether's Weekly, published at Memphis, Tenn., was one of the most welcome journals to our table. Its columns were permeated by a broad humanitarian spirit. Meriwether brothers, its editors and publishers, contemplated the removal of their paper to St. Louis, and were making active preparations to this end when the soul and life of the enterprise, Mr. Avery Meriwether, a young man of only 26 years, was laid low by death at Waukesha, Wis., whither he had gone for a few weeks rest and recreation. For one so young, Avery Meriwether had given great promises of future usefulness. Gifted beyond the common lot of men, he entered life's struggles with high hopes and aspirations. Besides his native tongue, he mastered German and French, and was familiar with the literature of these languages. His character and philosophy are described in the following stanza from a poem addressed to him two years ago by his friend, the poet Kenneth Lamar:
I knew thou wert in line and one with all who dare defy
A crowned, and mailed, and sceptered wrong—whate'er that wrong may be, Who own no master here below, no master in the sky, And who would break all bars and gyves, and bid the bond go free.
The Memphis Appeal speaks in the highest terms of the departed. "The gay butterflies of fashion," says this paper, "feared him because he discussed higher themes than the frivolity of social life." And again, "There was no young man in the South with a more brilliant future before him." And his mother, who is widely known as a writer, says of him: "His culture was wide and deep for one of his age. He was a bold thinker, never a time-server. He always hated tyranny and sympathized with the oppressed." Well might the world mourn with this bereaved mother over the death of such a youth. No wonder she cries out, "He is gone from us, and all now is darkness and desolation. **** Oh! how cruel, how cruel is death!" Though we never new Mr. Meriwether except through his paper, we feel his loss as a personal one, and sincerely sympathize with his grief-stricken family. The Weekly will not be continued. Minor Lee Meriwether, a younger brother and junior editor, writes: "I have neither the heart nor the ability to carry on his work without his aid and direction; I have not his ripe scholarship, his acquaintance with history, politics or science."
The last that remained of the lamented Avery Meriwether was committed to the bosom of mother earth yesterday afternoon in the quiet shades of Elmwood. The pallbearers were Messrs. Frazer T. Edmondson, Walter Gregory, Flint Gantt, Lee Thornton, L. W. Humes, Thomas M. Scruggs, Jno. D. Martin, and Jno. W. Currin, young members of the bar and personal friends of the deceased. The bar was largely represented, some thirty-five or forty members, or nearly all in the city, being present. There was still a larger attendance of other friends of the family. The coffin was lowered into the grave, and the pallbearers and other members of the bar shoveled in the fresh earth. When the little mound was finished, a number of sympathetic ladies stepped forward, and with tender, loving hands, fairly covered it with beautiful floral offerings. All was over, and all was done in honor of the dear departed young man. The last sad yet beautiful rites had been paid, and as the rays of a golden sunset illuminated the magnolias and monuments, evergreens and hillocks, the procession slowly left the cemetery and moved again toward the city of the living. - Obituary in Memphis, TN daily paper dated July 27, 1883
-----------------------------------------
Scimitar (Memphis, Tennessee)
July 23, 1883
Mr. Avery Meriwether of this city, and one of the editors of Meriwethers' Weekly, died yesterday morning at Waukesha, Wisconsin. He was a young man of energy, intelligence and influence, and will be missed by many, and mourned over by loving relatives. His example is one that should be copied by young men who desire to establish for themselves an honored and admired name, and we, knowing him, feel assured that his death will be regretted by all classes.
-----------------------------------------
"Recollections of 92 Years, 1824 - 1916"
by Elizabeth Avery Meriwether (mother of Avery)
I lost my first born, my darling son, Avery. How great this second blow was to me may be judged by the following extract from a letter which I wrote at the time of his death and which was published in the 'Memorial' number of 'Meriwether's Weekly,' the literary journal which my dear boy was editing and publishing during the last three years of his life. My boy died while away from home and after only a day's illness, on July 22nd, 1883, just a week after his twenty sixth birthday, and here is what I wrote the day after he was put away from me forever:
For twenty-six years he was the light of our home and our hearts! Our first born, our darling, our darling! We loved him, we love him yet, his father and I, more than life. His death has forever darkened our skies and hung our world in black. He was a boy no human could know with loving; tender, true, strong in moral purpose, always sunny, always joyous! He never entered our presence with a beaming face and never left us without a kiss. . . He hated tyranny and sympathized with the oppressed. His Ovum Vovo published in pamphlet form is a satire on a certain phase of American politics of no ordinary merit; had so fine a satire on English politics been published in London it would have won celebrity for its author. His pamphlet English Tyranny and Irish Suffering exhibits a grasp of the Irish Question which few older men posses. . . I call to my darling but he answers not. I stretch out my arms to embrace him, and I clasp only the empty air. Never again shall I hear his voice, never again feel the tender touch of his caresses! Oh how cruel, how cruel is death!"
A third of a century has passed since Avery's death; during those thirty three years other dear ones have been snatched from me, but the loss of the others was no such a blow to me as was the loss of my first born boy. In a glass gar on my desk before me as I write these lines is the little dress which I made for Avery when he was born; I have kept it all these years and wish it put beside me in my coffin when I die -- the little garment which I made fifty nine years ago for my first born, for my darling boy, for my tender and true and brilliant son!
-----------------------------------------
Booneville News (Booneville, Missouri)
August 17, 1883
Mr. Avery Meriwether, editor of Meriwether's Weekly of Memphis, Tennessee died of brain fever 22nd, July '83, at Waukesha Wisconsin. He was a young man only 26 years of age, a fine scholar and an able writer, a brilliant and shining light that all his friends looked upon and acknowledged him a leader in the journalistic world. Mrs. V.L. Minor of St. Louis, his aunt, once spoke to us of her two nephews, of their intelligence, industry and perseverance, and she was so happy and pleased to tell us of them, of their pure manly and noble traits of character and no mother could have shown her favorite off to better advantage. His brother five years younger and a junior partner, a good newspaper man and one devoted to his calling is so stricken with grief and disappointment that he feels unable to take the management of the paper alone, and proposes to sell. They were expecting to move to St. Louis to ran an illustrated paper and were to have begun the first of the month, and now nothing but blank despair seems to have settled upon the whole household upon the loss of their idol. She mentioned the Free Trader (Meriwether Weekly) as an interesting and desirable weekly published by them.
-----------------------------------------
Advance (Worthington, Minnesota)
Date unknown (died July 22, 1883)
Avery Meriwether, the publisher of Meriwether's Weekly, the best of the Southern library publications, died at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 22f. The paper suspended publication August 11th. His mother, in an editorial obituary, pours out her love and grief in a strain we have never seen surpassed unless it was in the wail of Geo. D. Prentice over his son Clarence, who was killed during the war. Avery Meriwether certainly was a young man worth bewailing. Brilliant, independent and able, if he had lived he would have taken a place in the front ranks of the Free-thought army. His mother says:
He left us so full of high hopes and ardent energies. We were to have followed him to St. Louis this Fall, and there make a home for him. But he has gone from us, and all now is darkness and desolation. I call to my darling, but he answers not. I stretch out my arms to enfold him, and clasp only empty air. Never again will I hear the loving tones of his voice, never again feel the tender touch of his caresses. My darling, my darling! Oh! How cruel, how cruel is death!
"Never again" is the best that the church of the materialist or the infidel can offer beyond a bare, bald hope. We sat for twenty years under the sermons of orthodox ministers, and we assert that it never was taught as a settled doctrine among them that we should meet and know our friends after death. Some believed it and taught it as probable, but none could do so with confidence. Bare hope, bare faith, is all the church of the materialist can offer.
The spiritualist offers demonstration, conviction, certainty to all who will investigate thoroughly. "Knock and it shall be opened," that is, the door will be opened so you can see the next world, "Seek and ye shall find" your so-called dead, alive, young, renewed, immortal.
-----------------------------------------
Chicago Radical Review (Chicago, Illinois)
Date unknown (died July 22, 1883)
Meriwether's Weekly, published at Memphis, Tenn., was one of the most welcome journals to our table. Its columns were permeated by a broad humanitarian spirit. Meriwether brothers, its editors and publishers, contemplated the removal of their paper to St. Louis, and were making active preparations to this end when the soul and life of the enterprise, Mr. Avery Meriwether, a young man of only 26 years, was laid low by death at Waukesha, Wis., whither he had gone for a few weeks rest and recreation. For one so young, Avery Meriwether had given great promises of future usefulness. Gifted beyond the common lot of men, he entered life's struggles with high hopes and aspirations. Besides his native tongue, he mastered German and French, and was familiar with the literature of these languages. His character and philosophy are described in the following stanza from a poem addressed to him two years ago by his friend, the poet Kenneth Lamar:
I knew thou wert in line and one with all who dare defy
A crowned, and mailed, and sceptered wrong—whate'er that wrong may be, Who own no master here below, no master in the sky, And who would break all bars and gyves, and bid the bond go free.
The Memphis Appeal speaks in the highest terms of the departed. "The gay butterflies of fashion," says this paper, "feared him because he discussed higher themes than the frivolity of social life." And again, "There was no young man in the South with a more brilliant future before him." And his mother, who is widely known as a writer, says of him: "His culture was wide and deep for one of his age. He was a bold thinker, never a time-server. He always hated tyranny and sympathized with the oppressed." Well might the world mourn with this bereaved mother over the death of such a youth. No wonder she cries out, "He is gone from us, and all now is darkness and desolation. **** Oh! how cruel, how cruel is death!" Though we never new Mr. Meriwether except through his paper, we feel his loss as a personal one, and sincerely sympathize with his grief-stricken family. The Weekly will not be continued. Minor Lee Meriwether, a younger brother and junior editor, writes: "I have neither the heart nor the ability to carry on his work without his aid and direction; I have not his ripe scholarship, his acquaintance with history, politics or science."
-----------------------------------------
Scimitar (Memphis, Tennessee)
July 23, 1883
Mr. Avery Meriwether of this city, and one of the editors of Meriwethers' Weekly, died yesterday morning at Waukesha, Wisconsin. He was a young man of energy, intelligence and influence, and will be missed by many, and mourned over by loving relatives. His example is one that should be copied by young men who desire to establish for themselves an honored and admired name, and we, knowing him, feel assured that his death will be regretted by all classes.
-----------------------------------------
"Recollections of 92 Years, 1824 - 1916"
by Elizabeth Avery Meriwether (mother of Avery)
I lost my first born, my darling son, Avery. How great this second blow was to me may be judged by the following extract from a letter which I wrote at the time of his death and which was published in the 'Memorial' number of 'Meriwether's Weekly,' the literary journal which my dear boy was editing and publishing during the last three years of his life. My boy died while away from home and after only a day's illness, on July 22nd, 1883, just a week after his twenty sixth birthday, and here is what I wrote the day after he was put away from me forever:
For twenty-six years he was the light of our home and our hearts! Our first born, our darling, our darling! We loved him, we love him yet, his father and I, more than life. His death has forever darkened our skies and hung our world in black. He was a boy no human could know with loving; tender, true, strong in moral purpose, always sunny, always joyous! He never entered our presence with a beaming face and never left us without a kiss. . . He hated tyranny and sympathized with the oppressed. His Ovum Vovo published in pamphlet form is a satire on a certain phase of American politics of no ordinary merit; had so fine a satire on English politics been published in London it would have won celebrity for its author. His pamphlet English Tyranny and Irish Suffering exhibits a grasp of the Irish Question which few older men posses. . . I call to my darling but he answers not. I stretch out my arms to embrace him, and I clasp only the empty air. Never again shall I hear his voice, never again feel the tender touch of his caresses! Oh how cruel, how cruel is death!"
A third of a century has passed since Avery's death; during those thirty three years other dear ones have been snatched from me, but the loss of the others was no such a blow to me as was the loss of my first born boy. In a glass gar on my desk before me as I write these lines is the little dress which I made for Avery when he was born; I have kept it all these years and wish it put beside me in my coffin when I die -- the little garment which I made fifty nine years ago for my first born, for my darling boy, for my tender and true and brilliant son!
-----------------------------------------
Booneville News (Booneville, Missouri)
August 17, 1883
Mr. Avery Meriwether, editor of Meriwether's Weekly of Memphis, Tennessee died of brain fever 22nd, July '83, at Waukesha Wisconsin. He was a young man only 26 years of age, a fine scholar and an able writer, a brilliant and shining light that all his friends looked upon and acknowledged him a leader in the journalistic world. Mrs. V.L. Minor of St. Louis, his aunt, once spoke to us of her two nephews, of their intelligence, industry and perseverance, and she was so happy and pleased to tell us of them, of their pure manly and noble traits of character and no mother could have shown her favorite off to better advantage. His brother five years younger and a junior partner, a good newspaper man and one devoted to his calling is so stricken with grief and disappointment that he feels unable to take the management of the paper alone, and proposes to sell. They were expecting to move to St. Louis to ran an illustrated paper and were to have begun the first of the month, and now nothing but blank despair seems to have settled upon the whole household upon the loss of their idol. She mentioned the Free Trader (Meriwether Weekly) as an interesting and desirable weekly published by them.
-----------------------------------------
Advance (Worthington, Minnesota)
Date unknown (died July 22, 1883)
Avery Meriwether, the publisher of Meriwether's Weekly, the best of the Southern library publications, died at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 22f. The paper suspended publication August 11th. His mother, in an editorial obituary, pours out her love and grief in a strain we have never seen surpassed unless it was in the wail of Geo. D. Prentice over his son Clarence, who was killed during the war. Avery Meriwether certainly was a young man worth bewailing. Brilliant, independent and able, if he had lived he would have taken a place in the front ranks of the Free-thought army. His mother says:
He left us so full of high hopes and ardent energies. We were to have followed him to St. Louis this Fall, and there make a home for him. But he has gone from us, and all now is darkness and desolation. I call to my darling, but he answers not. I stretch out my arms to enfold him, and clasp only empty air. Never again will I hear the loving tones of his voice, never again feel the tender touch of his caresses. My darling, my darling! Oh! How cruel, how cruel is death!
"Never again" is the best that the church of the materialist or the infidel can offer beyond a bare, bald hope. We sat for twenty years under the sermons of orthodox ministers, and we assert that it never was taught as a settled doctrine among them that we should meet and know our friends after death. Some believed it and taught it as probable, but none could do so with confidence. Bare hope, bare faith, is all the church of the materialist can offer.
The spiritualist offers demonstration, conviction, certainty to all who will investigate thoroughly. "Knock and it shall be opened," that is, the door will be opened so you can see the next world, "Seek and ye shall find" your so-called dead, alive, young, renewed, immortal.
-----------------------------------------
Chicago Radical Review (Chicago, Illinois)
Date unknown (died July 22, 1883)
Meriwether's Weekly, published at Memphis, Tenn., was one of the most welcome journals to our table. Its columns were permeated by a broad humanitarian spirit. Meriwether brothers, its editors and publishers, contemplated the removal of their paper to St. Louis, and were making active preparations to this end when the soul and life of the enterprise, Mr. Avery Meriwether, a young man of only 26 years, was laid low by death at Waukesha, Wis., whither he had gone for a few weeks rest and recreation. For one so young, Avery Meriwether had given great promises of future usefulness. Gifted beyond the common lot of men, he entered life's struggles with high hopes and aspirations. Besides his native tongue, he mastered German and French, and was familiar with the literature of these languages. His character and philosophy are described in the following stanza from a poem addressed to him two years ago by his friend, the poet Kenneth Lamar:
I knew thou wert in line and one with all who dare defy
A crowned, and mailed, and sceptered wrong—whate'er that wrong may be, Who own no master here below, no master in the sky, And who would break all bars and gyves, and bid the bond go free.
The Memphis Appeal speaks in the highest terms of the departed. "The gay butterflies of fashion," says this paper, "feared him because he discussed higher themes than the frivolity of social life." And again, "There was no young man in the South with a more brilliant future before him." And his mother, who is widely known as a writer, says of him: "His culture was wide and deep for one of his age. He was a bold thinker, never a time-server. He always hated tyranny and sympathized with the oppressed." Well might the world mourn with this bereaved mother over the death of such a youth. No wonder she cries out, "He is gone from us, and all now is darkness and desolation. **** Oh! how cruel, how cruel is death!" Though we never new Mr. Meriwether except through his paper, we feel his loss as a personal one, and sincerely sympathize with his grief-stricken family. The Weekly will not be continued. Minor Lee Meriwether, a younger brother and junior editor, writes: "I have neither the heart nor the ability to carry on his work without his aid and direction; I have not his ripe scholarship, his acquaintance with history, politics or science."
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TMSI [1732]
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