Thomas Richard Meux 1838-1929
Thomas Richard Meux was born in 1838 in Wesley, Haywood County, Tennessee, the son of John Oliver Meux and Anne Tuggle Meux.
Thomas Meux attended the University of Virginia and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1860 at the age of twenty-two.
In 1861, Dr. Meux enlisted as a private in the Ninth Tennessee Volunteer Regiment, Co. C, Maney's Co. Cheatham Division of the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He was at the battles of Shiloh, Murfeesborough and Atlanta. After four years as an assistant surgeon, he left the service as an assistant surgeon with the rank of Captain in 1865.
On June 3, 1874 he married Mary Ester Davis in Brownsville, Haywood County, Tennessee. They became the parents of John W., Mary D., and Anne Prenetta. Mrs. Meux was in poor health and on the advice of a brother, John P. Meux, who had moved to San Francisco in 1879, Dr. Meux decided to move his family to the Central Valley. In December, 1887, the Meux family registered at the Southern Pacific Hotel in Fresno.
Property in a prime residential area of the city, at the corner of Tulare and R Streets, was purchased by the doctor from the County of Fresno as a homesite in March, 1888, and the family moved into the house January, 1889.
Dr. Meux established his medical practice in 1889 and served the community as a physician until his retirement. He served as president of the Fresno County Medical Society in 1896 and was described as a staunch member of the Fresno County democratic Club and the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Thomas Meux and his brother, John, owned vineyards in the county and he maintained an active interest in agricultural affairs.
The Meux house was continuously occupied by the Meux family for a total of 81 years. Dr. Meux died at the age of 91 in 1929 and his daughter, Anne Prenetta Meux, died in 1970, having lived in the house since she was four years old.
The Fresno Bee (daily newspaper) heralded this occupancy as establishing the longest individual residence of one of Fresno's oldest wellings.