After becoming an attorney, he moved to Albany, New York becoming Adjutant General of New York in 1861. He was one of the originators of the "Wide-Awake" political clubs in 1860. He was chairman in April of the same year of the committee of three to draft a bill in behalf of New York State, appropriating $300,000 for the purchase of arms and equipment, and he subsequently received the thanks of the war department for his ability and zeal in organizing, equipping, and forwarding troops. Read was the first U. S. consul general for France and Algeria from 1869 to 1873 and from 1870 to 1872. He served as acting consul general for Germany during the Franco-Prussian War. His work representing German interests in Paris lasted several months after U.S. Minister to France Elihu Washburne ceased being official representative of the German government in June 1871. After the war, he was appointed by the French Minister of War, General Ernest Courtot de Cissey to form and preside over a commission to examine into the desirability of teaching the English language to the French troops.
In November 1873, he was appointed U.S. Minister Resident in Greece. One of his first acts was to secure the release of the American ship Armenia and to obtain from the Greek government a revocation of the order that prohibited the sale of the Bible in Greece. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, he discovered that only one port in Russia was still open, and he pointed out to Secretary of State William M. Evarts the advantages that would accrue to the commerce of the United States were a grain fleet dispatched from New York City to that port. The event justified his judgment, since the exports of cereals from the United States showed an increase within a year of $73,000,000. While Chargé d'Affaires, he received the thanks of the U.S. Government for his effectual protection of persons and interests of the United States in the dangerous crisis of 1878. Soon afterward the United States Congress, from motives of economy, refused the appropriation for the legation at Athens, and Read, believing that the time was too critical to withdraw the mission, carried it on at his individual expense until his resignation on September 23, 1879. In 1881, when, owing in part to his efforts, after his resignation, the territory that had been adjudged to Greece had been finally transferred, King George I of Greece created him a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer, the highest dignity in the gift of the Greek government. After 1881, he continued residing in Paris.
Later life
Read was president of the social science congress at Albany in 1868, and vice president of the one at Plymouth, England, in 1872. He wrote Historical Enquiry concerning Henry Hudson, which discussed Hudson's origins, and the sources of the ideas that guided that navigator. Historic Studies in Vaud, Berne, and Savoy; from Roman Times to Voltaire, Rousseau and Gibbon was published in 1897. He also made contributions to current literature, including Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography, published in 1892. In 1892, the Reads gave a dinner in honor of the departing U.S. Minister Whitelaw Reid, at their home in Paris.
Personal life
On April 7, 1859, Read was married to Delphine Marie Pumpelly, a daughter of Harmon Pumpelly and Delphine Pumpelly of Owego, New York. Together, they were the parents of four children:
Harmon Pumpelly Read, a capitalist who married French born Catherine Marguerite de Carron d'Allondons.
John Meredith Read III, who married Countess Alix de Foras, a daughter of Count :fr:Amédée de Foras|Amédée de Foras, the Grand Marshal of the Court of Bulgaria, in 1901.
After a severe attack of bronchitis, Read died in Paris on December 27, 1896. He was buried at the Old Communal Cemetery at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. His widow also died in Paris on May 29, 1902 and was buried in the same cemetery.
Descendants
Through his youngest daughter, he was a grandfather of Countess Delphine Marie de Foras, who married Baron Joseph Humbert de Viry. When in America, the Baron and Baroness de Viry lived at Emily Read Spencer's home, Shipton Court, Lenox, Massachusetts. They were the parents of Pernette de Viry, who married Jacques Siemons of the Manoir de Breuil-en-Auge, Calvados; Julie Maxilienne de Viry, who married Woodbridge Strong ; Roselyne de Viry, who became the wife of sculptor Thomas Talmadge Kinney Frelinghuysen in 1949.
