admin ALEXANDER MELDRUM. For almost twenty-five years Alexander Meldrum was one of Buffalo’s leading merchants. He was a pioneer of the broader development of the dry-goods trade in Western New York. Alexander Meldrum was of Scottish birth. He came of an ancient and esteemed Fifeshire family. His parents, Thomas and Janet Meldrum, were well known residents of Kenoway, Fifeshire.
Alexander Meldrum was born near Kenoway, November 3d, 1833. He was early apprenticed to a dry-goods house in Markinch. When twenty-two years old Mr. Meldurm came to the United States, locating in Boston, where he entered the employ of Kinmonth’s store, afterward Hogg, Brown & Taylor. He was soon promoted from salesman to the responsible post of buyer, and remained with the firm until 1867, when he came to Buffalo, being accompanied by the late Robert B. Adam, and Albert Whiting. Immediately after his arrival in Buffalo, Mr. Meldrum and his associates formed the copartnership of Adam, Meldrum & Whiting, doing a general dry-goods business. In 1869 Mr. Whiting retired, and the concern became Adam & Melidrum. In 1875 William Anderson was admitted partner, the firm style being changed to Adam, Meldrum & Anderson. The connection of Mr. Meldrum with the business lasted until his death in 1891. He also held a controlling interest in the Dayton Drygoods Company of Dayton, Ohio, and was the sole owner of the Queen City Underwear Company of Buffalo.
Mr. Meldrum was a member of the Lafayette Street Presbyterian Church, the Buffalo Club, and of St. Andrew’s Scottish Society, as well as of other Scottish-American bodies.
February 27th, 1859, Mr. Meldrum married Ann Elizabeth Webster, a daughter of Elizabeth Story Hackett and Benjamin Franklin Webster of Boston, Mass. Mrs. Meldrum came of distinguished New England ancestry and was a grand-niece of Daniel Webster. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Meldrum are: Arthur R.; Alice M., wife of Thomas P. Daniels of New York City; Thomas Alfred, who was drowned when twenty years old; Herbert A.; Jessie Pollock, now Mrs. F. P. Vandenburg, and Florence Jeannette Meldrum.
The death of Mr. Meldrum occurred in Buffalo on the 21st of October, 1891.
SOURCE: Memorial and Family History of Erie County New York; Volume I