Cowles Mead

{{Short description|American politician (1776–1844)}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2020}}{{use American English|date=March 2025}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Cowles Mead

| office = Delegate-elect to the
U.S. House of Representatives
from the Mississippi Territory's
at-large district

| term = Not seated

| predecessor = William Lattimore

| successor = George Poindexter (Representative)

| office1 = Secretary of State of Mississippi

| governor1 = Robert Williams

| term_start1 = 1806

| term_end1 = 1807

| predecessor1 = Thomas Hill Williams

| successor1 = Thomas Hill Williams

| state2 = Georgia

| district2 = {{ushr|GA|AL|at-large}}

| term_start2 = March 4, 1805

| term_end2 = December 24, 1805

| predecessor2 = Samuel Hammond

| successor2 = Thomas Spalding

| birth_date = {{birth date|1776|10|18}}

| birth_place = Bedford County, Virginia, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1844|5|17|1776|10|18}}

| death_place = Hinds County, Mississippi, U.S.

| party = Democratic-Republican

| image = CowlesMeadPortrait.png

}}

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.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0evHMi9WroYC |title=Mississippi Official and Statistical Register |date=2004 |publisher=Secretary of State |pages=145 |language=en}} 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.

File:Old_Greenville_before_it_was_"Old"_-_Detail_of_1819_John_Melish_map_of_Mississippi.jpg

An article published in 1849 described his involvement in the arrest of Aaron Burr and the writer's impression of Mead's character:{{Cite news |date=1849-12-21 |title=Mississippi Sketches |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-port-gibson-herald-and-corresponden/161012209/ |access-date=2024-12-17 |work=The Port Gibson Herald, and Correspondent |pages=1}}

{{blockquote|text=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.}}Mead's house, called Meadvilla, stood along the main (only) street of Washington, Mississippi Territory.{{cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Dennis J. |title=A New History of Mississippi |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |year=2014 |page=128 |isbn=9781626740198 |location=Jackson |lccn=2013044104 |oclc=863127649 |id={{Project MUSE|33980|type=book}}}} After his time it was used as the Washington Hotel and later purchased and occupied for many years by Benjamin L. C. Wailes.