MECKLENBURG-SCHWERIN 



3715 



MEDFORD 



N. C., on May 20, 1775, asserting that the resi- 

 dents of the county should thereafter be inde- 

 pendent of British rule. The minutes of the 

 meeting in which the resolutions were passed 

 were declared to have been burned in 1800, but 

 in 1819 they were reproduced as far as possible 

 from memory and published'in the Register of 

 Raleigh, N. C. The fact that the resolutions 

 contained several phrases almost identical with 

 the Declaration of Independence drafted by 

 Jefferson and adopted on July 4, 1776, has 

 caused doubt to arise as to the authenticity of 

 the Mecklenburg Declaration. The subject 

 was investigated by the North Carolina legisla- 

 ture in 1831, and it was declared that the 

 Mecklenburg resolutions bore no resemblance 

 to the famous Declaration of Independence. 

 In recognition of this conclusion as to the 

 authenticity of the document, May 20 was 

 made a legal holiday throughout the state, and 

 this statute is yet in force. 



MECKLENBURG - SCHWERIN, mek' len 

 boorK shvarecn', a former grand duchy of 

 Germany. It is bounded on the north by 

 the Baltic Sea, on the east by the Prussian 

 Pomerania and the former grand duchy of 



LOCATION MAP 



Mecklenburg-Strelitz, on the south by the 

 Prussian provinces of Brandenburg and Hano- 

 ver, and on ,the west by Schleswig-Holstein, 

 Ratzeburg and the state of Liibeck. The Elbe 

 River forms its south boundary for a distance 

 of a few miles. The country is low and flat, 

 with stretches of sand and marsh, but contains 

 much good agricultural land and is well watered 

 by many rivers, including tributaries of the 

 Elbe. It has an area of 5,068 square miles 

 (greater than that of Connecticut) and a popu- 

 lation of 640,000, ninety-six per cent of which 

 is Protestant. Grand Duke Frederick Francis 

 abolished serfdom in his realm shortly before 



his death in 1837, but Mecklenburg-Schwerin 

 has many semifeudal characteristics. The land 

 was in the hands of the Crown, aristocracy and 

 clergy, but was rented to hereditary tenants. 

 The former duchy has one university, ttie Uni- 

 versity of Rostock, with an attendance of 1,000, 

 before 1914. The capital is Schwerin, with a 

 population of 43,131 in 1911. 



MEDEA, mede'a, according to the Greek 

 myths, was a sorceress who had much to do 

 with the rise to power of Jason (which see). 

 When he came with his Argonauts to the king- 

 dom of her father in Colchis, she helped him to 

 obtain the lus- 

 trous Golden 

 Fleece by putting 

 to sleep the 

 dragon which 

 guarded it, and 

 then, fearing her 

 father, she fled 

 with the hero. 

 Her father pur- 

 sued, and she, to 

 gain time, killed 

 her young brother 

 Absyrtus and 

 scattered his 

 limbs on the sea. 

 On her arrival in 

 Thessaly she put 

 to death by a 

 stratagem Pelias, 



MEDEA 

 From a painting by Sichel. 



Jason's uncle, who had 

 usurped the throne, and she reigned with Jason 

 for many years, foiling his enemies by her arts 

 and advancing his interests in many ways. 

 Jason seems not to have found her a com- 

 fortable mate, however, for he deserted her 

 for the young Glauce, and Medea in revenge 

 sent to her rival a poisoned robe, in the folds 

 of which she found an agonizing death. As a 

 climax to her evil life Medea killed her own 

 children, and then mounting her dragon car 

 disappeared above the city and was never seen 

 again. The Grecian dramatist Euripides used 

 this story as the plot of one of his greatest 

 tragedies, Medea, and it is also the theme of a 

 modern opera by Cherubini. 



MED 'FORD, MASS., a residential suburb of 

 Boston, situated in Middlesex County, in the 

 eastern part of the state, on the Mystic River. 

 Boston is five miles southeast. The Boston & 

 Maine Railroad serves the city, and electric 

 lines connect with Boston and with cities north. 

 In 1630 the place was settled by people from 

 Salem, who called it Meadford, for Mead lord 



