{"id":106372,"date":"2026-01-27T10:28:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T15:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/?p=106372"},"modified":"2026-01-27T10:38:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T15:38:02","slug":"a-million-relatives-fame-and-fortune-in-the-meador-family-tree-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/a-million-relatives-fame-and-fortune-in-the-meador-family-tree-part-2.html","title":{"rendered":"A Million Relatives: Fame and Fortune in the Meador Family Tree (part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this second of a four-part series, James Pylant tells his own genealogical journey, that started when he was 11, about his vast Meador family and their many connections and stories, including an unclaimed Texas oil fortune. James is an editor at GenealogyMagazine.com and author for JacobusBooks.com, is an award-winning historical true-crime writer, and authorized celebrity biographer.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cGenealogy generally isn\u2019t a dangerous pursuit, but with big money at stake, things can get touchy,\u201d wrote Gail Nardi about the Meador(s)-Meadow(s) clan\u2019s \u201cmad fandango\u201d of claiming kinship with a \u201cdrunk, crazy\u201d man [credit: Gail Nardi, \u201cTale of Untapped Wealth Leads Meadowses to Claim Kinship,\u201d Richmond Times-Dispatch<\/em>\u00a0(Richmond, Virginia), 2 March 1986, page A6]. Maybe \u2013 just maybe \u2013 being able to prove that kinship would bring them wealth. (Note: spelling of the family surname varies, with Meador, Meadors, Meadow, and Meadows all being used.)<\/p>\n

The tale starts with Spindletop, the famed oil strike outside of Beaumont, Texas, on 10 January 1901 with a well called Lucas No. 1 erupting into a massive gusher producing about 100,000 barrels of oil a day.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:
Photo: the Lucas Gusher at Spindletop Hill, South of Beaumont, Texas, 10 January 1901, which began the Texas oil boom. Credit: John Trost; American Petroleum Institute; Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anthony Lucas, who struck the gusher, had deeded a one-eighth undivided mineral interest to Ephraim Garonzik, who transferred it to James Meadors in 1911.<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, James wouldn\u2019t file his all-important deed until 1931. And that was the extent of his involvement; he never sought a division, partition, or accounting. That\u2019s the scenario embraced by his would-be heirs, and lawsuits ensued.<\/p>\n

In 1985, U.S. Magistrate Earl S. Hines recommended the dismissal of two of the cases, placing the Meador(s)-Meadow(s) claims on shaky ground.<\/p>\n

Like a flock of birds, alleged heirs flitted from one family tree branch to another, unsettled by every gust of wind. Splitting into factions, they disagreed about James\u2019s dates of birth and death, the names of his parents, and exactly how he fit into the vast Meador(s)-Meadow(s) family tree. He became their very own Jackpot Jim to fill their genealogical void with riches, and various connections were drafted as candidates \u2013 all traced to the turn of the 20th century in Texas.<\/p>\n

James Meadors died in Dallas on 31 October 1925. The true heirs were his four deceased children, a daughter-in-law, and two Dallas churches.<\/p>\n

No, said others \u2013 it was James Meadors and<\/em> twin brother William Reuben Meadors who left their family\u2019s Kentucky farm in the late 1800s to find fortune in the Lone Star State. Their grandnephews were among the heirs making a claim, saying the twins died childless.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond, Virginia), 2 March 1986, page 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article reports:<\/p>\n

The clan\u2019s progenitor was a Thomas Meadows who came to what is now Essex County from England\u2026 Five generations later, in 1770, Francis Meadows settled in Jollett Hollow, a fold in the west side of the Blue Ridge Mountains that\u2019s now in Page County.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In another version, the twins \u2013 called James Allen Meadors and Reuben Jones Meadors \u2013 were born in 1891 in Wayne County, Kentucky. James, a surveyor, and Reuben, an oil driller, came to the Texas oilfields and accumulated deeds in exchange for work \u2013 including the one-eighth undivided mineral interest in Spindletop.<\/p>\n

James\u2019s father and brothers threatened to kill him if he filed the Spindletop deed. \u201cHis father had already killed one daughter and son, so he was afraid of him,\u201d explained John Howard Meadows. Not until his father lay dying in an Ohio poor house did James arrange for one of his brothers to file the deed. And then there\u2019s James\u2019s wife, who was supposedly taking orders from someone in Texas who wanted him dead. \u201cShe kept him doped up, locked him in the cellar.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Howard Meadows said the real Spindletop James Meadors died in a veteran\u2019s hospital in Dayton, Ohio, in 1953. He wasn\u2019t childless; he had two daughters. They made an agreement with John Howard Meadows allowing him 15 percent of the Spindletop fortune because of his five-year devotion and $200,00 worth of work on the case.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another article about other claimants.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Birmingham News (Birmingham, Alabama), 23 September 1982, page 18<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article reports:<\/p>\n

What they [Dan Clark and Jim Profitt] want, of course, is money that they say should have been in their family since their great uncle, James Meadors, bought a tract of Spindletop in 1911 for \u201c$10 and other considerations\u201d from a Dallas lawyer named Ephraim Garonzik. (Local Spindletop experts explain that there was a time after the initial boom years \u2013 and before more oil was found \u2013 that Spindletop land wasn\u2019t considered valuable.) The two cousins claim that the deed \u2013 which they have \u2013 entitles the family to a \u201cone-eighth undivided interest\u201d in four tracts of land on Spindletop.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why he bought the land,\u201d Profitt said, explaining that his grandfather and Clark\u2019s grandfather were Meadors\u2019 brothers. \u201cMeadors never had children, so this deed entitles the heirs of his brothers and sisters to whatever he had \u2013 a percentage of Spindletop since 1911 \u2013 and that\u2019s billions!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This graphic gives a glimpse into the \u201cmyriad\u201d Spindletop fortune claims.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Houston Chronicle (Houston, Texas), 12 February 1989, page 6E<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pelham Humphries\u2019s land grant reportedly went through a series of owners for 75 years before it was purchased in 1911 by James Meadors, supposed twin brother of Ruben Meadors.<\/p>\n

But which Ruben?<\/p>\n

WikiTree offers Reuben Meadors<\/a> (1793\u20131861), who died in Whitley County, Kentucky. Some claim he married Nancy Elizabeth Humphries. \u201cThere is no evidence to support the claim, nor any evidence to support Nancy\u2019s existence,\u201d cautioned WikiTree, suspecting it originated with the Spindletop fortune hunters.<\/p>\n

In Whitley County, the genealogical pendulum swung back to brother James as source of the would-be inheritance. \u201cThe old people always just said he went away and made a lot of money,\u201d recalled Mary Meadows Allen. She had dismissed the legend about James\u2019s Texas estate until 1983 when extended family members started taking the story seriously.<\/p>\n

The number of claimants mushroomed, with 20,000 \u201cheirs\u201d by 1989.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Fifth Circuit held that the 1911 Garonzik\u2013Meador(s) deed conveyed only four specific tracts, all located miles away from Spindletop, and did not include any part of the broader McFaddin inheritance on which the Spindletop field sits.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father went to his grave believing that his family would someday have these millions of dollars,\u201d said Judy Cain in a 2007 interview<\/a>. Her father spent $40,000 trying to claim the Spindletop fortune.<\/p>\n

Decades earlier, Ruben Meadors had been the linchpin of the so-called inheritance. In September 1960, J. B. Meadors, a supermarket owner in York, South Carolina, was notified that he would receive $28,000,000 as an heir to the estate of Rubin Medders who died in Texas in 1901. The news sent Meadors \u201crunning back and forth from Georgia to Alabama, hunting his relatives.\u201d (\u201cSearch on for Heirs to Fortune,\u201d Alabama Journal<\/em> (Montgomery, Alabama), 28 February 1960, page 3-D.)<\/p>\n

A year earlier, another version of the Ruben Meadors scenario emerged, taking a life of its own.<\/p>\n

In 1959, a small notice appearing in a Tuscaloosa, Alabama, newspaper sought the heirs of Ruben Medders, this time calling him the brother-in-law of Pelham Humphries. It caught the attention of John Medders, who corralled 200 of his kinfolks for a meeting in Centerville, Alabama, so that they could pursue their inheritance. Amid the crowd was John\u2019s nephew, Ernest Medders. He didn\u2019t take the story seriously. Not at first. Each contributed $30<\/a> to the legal fund, though down-and-out Ernest could only donate on an installment plan. Soon, though, he would prevail as the leading pretender to the Meador(s)-Meadows-Medders fortune, and his life would never be the same.<\/p>\n

More coming!<\/p>\n

Create a free account<\/a> at GenealogyBank for 7 days to start your journey and discover the stories your ancestors left behind.<\/p>\n

Note on the header image:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cHeywood #2 Gusher,\u201d Spindletop, Beaumont, Texas, 1901. Credit: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.<\/p>\n

Related Article:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n