Background
John Meredith Read, the son of John Meredith Read and Priscilla (Marshall) Read, was born on Feburary 21, 1837 at Philadelphia.
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John Meredith Read, the son of John Meredith Read and Priscilla (Marshall) Read, was born on Feburary 21, 1837 at Philadelphia.
He attended a military school and Brown University. He graduated from the Albany Law School in 1859.
He was admitted to the bar at Philadelphia. Assuming an active rôle in the Republican party, he helped organize the "Wide Awakes" in the campaign of 1860. As adjutant-general (January-August 1861), with the rank of brigadier-general, he directed the military efforts of the state of New York in the opening months of the Civil War.
During the following years he acquired some reputation as a scholar and writer, his chief production being A Historical Inquiry Concerning Henry Hudson (1866). His support of Grant for the presidency was rewarded by an appointment, April 16, 1869, as consul general at Paris. The most notable duty which there devolved upon him was that of protecting the interests of German subjects during the Franco-Prussian War, his share of which duty was prolonged several months after Elihu B. Washburne, minister to France, ceased to be official representative of the German government, June 1871.
Recognition of Read's services was marked by his appointment, November 7, 1873, as minister resident in Greece. A member of the Arch'ological Society of Athens, he reported on discoveries and forwarded to the Department of State casts of ancient treaties. An achievement of personal diplomacy was his securing, through informal representations, in 1876, revocation of an order against the sale of translations of the Bible and other religious works circulated by the British and American Bible societies. In the interference with Russia's grain trade by her war with Turkey, Read saw a commercial opportunity for the United States.
In a dispatch of July 23, 1877, he urged that prompt action by American shippers might result in securing the grain markets of Europe. His appeal was published and widely commented on in the American press. The effect of this dispatch as a single factor in so vast and complex a movement as the growth of the grain trade is difficult to assess, especially since Russian exports, as well as American, increased in the very year of the war. Whatever part it played is to the credit of its sender's zeal for his country's interests; but his own estimate of its consequences, as reflected in later dispatches and in biographical statements, was undoubtedly exaggerated.
From motives of economy, Congress reduced Read's rank, in 1876, to that of chargé d'affaires and, in 1878, cut off all appropriations for the legation. His interest in the unsettled fortunes of Greece after the Congress of Berlin prompted him to remain at his post without compensation until September 1879, when his resignation was tendered and accepted. Thereafter he toured Europe as an unofficial advocate of the Greek territorial claims, for which services, after the settlement in 1881, he received the highest Greek decoration. Occupying himself with the collection of manuscripts and with projects of publication, he lived thenceforth in Paris until his death.
His Historic Studies in Vaud, Berne, and Savoy; from Roman Times to Voltaire, Rousseau and Gibbon (1897) appeared after his death.
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He married Delphine Marie, daughter of Harmon Pumpelly of Albany. He was survived by two sons and two daughters.