Reuben Merriweather (1743-1794), who held Abraham Byfield's indenture contract for three years, was a lawyer and wealthy land owner in Maryland. His plantation, known as "Round about Hills" was over 1000 acres. In the 1790 census listed 47 people in the Merriweather household, 38 of which were listed as slaves. Both slaves and indentured servants were listed as slaves in the 1790 census so it's hard to know how these were divided, but we do know that in 1788 at least one of that number would have been the indentured servant, Abraham Byfield.
Reuben Merriweather was an ancestor of C. W. Post and is mentioned in the genealogical suplement ot the book C. W. Post: the hour and the man by Nettie Leitch Major.
From The Record of Nicholas Meriwether of Wales and Descendants in Virginia and Maryland 1631-1899 by William Ridgely Griffith:
Reuben Meriwether of “Roundabout Hills” Anne Arundel Co., now Howard Co., Md. (the oldest child to live beyond infancy), was the son of Capt. Nicholas4 Meriwether and wife Frances (Morton) of Goochland Co., Va. He was an Attorney at Law, and a prominent character in the stirring days that preceded and during the American Revolution, first in Virginia and afterwards in Maryland. He was a signer with
Richard Henry Lee, George Washington and 114 other leading men of Virginia, in Convention assembled at Leeds, Westmoreland Co., on Feb. 27, 1766, of the first public association in this country for resistence to the “Stamp Act.” He was Attorney for Lord Baltimore’s heirs, and their interests being greater in Maryland than in Virginia, he moved to Maryland in 1771, at which time he was 28 years of age. The old homestead of “Roundabout Hills” patented November 15, 1743, is located on the county road from Cooksville to Roxbury Mills and is in one of the most beautiful sections of the State of Maryland.
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