Edward P. Meany

NJGenWeb ~ Morris County, New Jersey

Edward P. Meany

Source: History Morris County New Jersey, Volume II, Lewis Publishing Co., 1914

Brigadier General Edawrd P. MEANY, counsellor-at-law, judge advocate general of New Jersey, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, May 13, 1854, son of Edward A. and Maria Lavina (SHANNON) MEANY. He is of Irish and English ancestry. His father was for a number of years conspicuously identified with the jurisprudence of the south, occupying an honored place upon the bench and as a member of the bar. Commodore BARRY and Captain John MEANY, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were members of his father’s family. His maternal grandfather was Henry Gould SHANNON, who settled in 1810 at Louisville Kentucky.

General MEANY was educated in the schools of his native State and at the St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri. He was prepared for the practice of his profession in the most careful and thorough manner by his father and was admitted to the bar in 1878. He was for many years counsel for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and held several positions of prominence and confidence in that corporation and in many of its associate companies. General MEANY has also acted on many occasions as an officer and director of important railway, financial, and other corporations. In 1884, as vice-president of the New Mexico Central and Southern Railway Company, he represented that company in Mexico and Europe, particularly as a representative of that company in connection with its affairs with the government of the Republic of Mexico. He is vice-president and director of the Trust Company of New Jersey, a director of the Colonial Life Insurance Company of America, and the Laurel Coal and Land Company and Pond Fork Coal and Land Company of West Virginia. He was appointed judge advocate general of New Jersey in 1893 with the rank of brigadier-general. In 1894 he was appointed one of the Palisades commissioners of the State of New Jersey, and has been a trustee and treasurer of the Newark Free Public Library. General MEANY is a Democrat in politics. He was a delegate from New Jersey to the National Democratic conventions of 1896 and 1900 and at both conventions he earnestly supported the principles advocated by the Old Line Democracy and vigorously protested against the abandonment by the party of those principles.

He married Rosalie BEHR, daughter of Peter BEHR, Esq., of St. Louis, Missouri, and has one child now living, his son,

Shannon Lord MEANY.

This biography was transcribed by John Cresseveur (1949-2003).