Mason Mathews


Mason Mathews was an American merchant and politician in the U.S. State of Virginia. He served seven years in the Virginia House of Delegates, representing Greenbrier County from 1859–1865 as a Whig. This period included the secession of Virginia and the resulting American Civil War of 1861–1865. During wartime, Mathews made field visits to the camps of Confederate generals Henry A. Wise and John B. Floyd to arbitrate a public feud between the two men regarding the Confederate loss at the Battle of Carnifex Ferry in the Western Virginia Campaign. When Mathews' home of Greenbrier County was taken into the new State of West Virginia in 1863, Mathews continued to travel to Richmond, Virginia to represent Greenbrier County in the state's Confederate legislature until war's end. He was a member of the Mathews political family from Virginia and the American South.

Early life and business

Mason Mathews was born on December 15, 1803, in Lewisburg, Greenbrier County, Virginia, to Mary Edgar and Joseph Mathews. His family was prominent in western Virginia. He was a descendant of pioneer John Mathews, and a great nephew of Revolutionary War general and Georgia Governor George Mathews. Another of his great-uncles, Archer Mathews, was a Virginia House Delegate who served as an original trustee of the City of Lewisburg when it was founded in 1782. Mason Mathews's father, Joseph, bought one of the original lots in the city, and moved his family from Augusta County to the new frontier of Lewisburg soon after.
Mason Mathews was primarily homeschooled by his mother. His early life was "one of hardship and self-denial"; he was a boy when his father died, so Mathews found work as a local store clerk and spent a number of years supporting the family in this capacity. On September 27, 1827, Mathews, at age 24, married Eliza Shore Reynolds, the 19-year-old daughter of Thomas Byrd Reynolds and Sally Ann McDowell. They had eight children: Mary Edgar, Sally Ann, Henry Mason, Virginia Amanda, Alexander Ferdinand, Joseph William, Eliza Thomas, and Sally Patton.
Around 1827, Mathews relocated to Frankford, Virginia, where he established a mercantile business that he brought back to Lewisburg. His business success afforded him the opportunity to send his three sons to be educated at the University of Virginia. Beginning in 1845, Mathews and his family resided at 1335 Washington Street East, in Lewisburg, West Virginia. The property remained in the Mathews family for 118 years.

Political career

Local offices

Mathews was elected sheriff of Greenbrier County around 1825, under High Sheriff James Andrews. He resigned the office in 1828, and in 1830, at the age of 27, was appointed by the Greenbrier County Court to the office of Commissioner of the Revenue for Greenbrier County's lower district, being also appointed to the upper district in 1832. He additionally served as a justice of the peace for the city of Frankford, and again in Lewisburg, from about 1834 to 1850, at which point the state judicial system was overhauled by the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850. He served for many years as the treasurer of the Board of Commissioners of Free Schools, which served to raise and deploy funding for the education of poor children in the absence of a public school system.

Virginia House of Delegates

In 1859, Mathews was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates for Greenbrier County as a representative of the Whig Party.
In the 1860 presidential election, Republican Abraham Lincoln won the presidency over Democrat John C. Breckinridge. As a result, Southerners began to discuss the possibility of secession in earnest. Mathews, like many northwestern Virginians, opposed secession, calling it "unwise, ill-advised, and not justified by the situation," despite the fact that Lincoln had not received a single vote in Mathews' home county of Greenbrier. By March 1861, seven Southern states had seceded from the United States, and Virginia was preparing to make its decision. At the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861, Greenbrier County twice against the motion to secede. Nevertheless, on April 17, 1861, Virginia's Ordinance of Secession passed. Mathews, along with all of Greenbrier County, claimed allegiance to the Confederate States of America.
Unionists from northwestern Virginia soon met at the Wheeling Convention to establish the Restored Government of Virginia, which would function as Virginia's official Union government. Greenbrier County, which had not sent a representative to Wheeling, nevertheless fell under the Restored Government's jurisdiction, which President Lincoln recognized as the legitimate authority for the whole of Virginia. This area officially became the State of West Virginia in June 1863. Mathews chose to "totally ignore" the new state, making no mention of it in his contemporary correspondence to family and political contacts. Though he found himself living in Union territory, he continued to travel to Richmond, Virginia to represent his county in the Confederate Virginia House of Delegates, where he retained his seat throughout the war.
In the House, Mathews served on several standing committees related to state fiscal policy. These included the Committee on Claims, which generally dealt with issues related to private bills and petitions, and the Joint Commission on Executive Expenditures, from which body he submitted legislation supporting the families of soldiers injured in the war, and advocated for improved infrastructure in western Virginia by means of an extended Covington and Ohio Railroad. He also was tasked with examining the state Treasurer's accounts.

Civil War

On the outbreak of war, Mathews' three sons volunteered for the Confederate States Army, where they each received officer commissions and were assigned to the brigade of General Henry A. Wise in the Western Virginia Campaign. The brigade saw action, as Wise and his co-commander, general John B. Floyd, engaged Union troops under General William S. Rosecrans at the Battle of Carnifex Ferry in the late summer of 1861. The battle was a strategic win for the Union, causing the Confederates to withdraw from the northwestern Virginia region. Generals Wise and Floyd each attempted to blame the other for the loss, resulting in significant discord in the ranks and negative attention from newspapers.
Mathews' second son, Captain Alexander F. Mathews was serving as Wise's aide-de-camp. Mason Mathews, to assess the urgency of the situation, spent several days in the camps of both Wise and Floyd. He then wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, urging that both men be deposed, stating, "They are as inimical to each other as men could be, and from their course of actions I am fully satisfied that each of them would be highly gratified to see the other annihilated." This, as well as the correspondence from the generals themselves, moved the Confederate army to address the rift between the generals, which at this point had spread throughout their respective camps. Davis subsequently removed Wise from his command of the western Virginia region.
On May 23, 1862. Union soldiers attacked Lewisburg, and the ensuing Battle of Lewisburg, lasting only 23 minutes, resulted in over three hundred Confederate casualties and a loss of positioning in the region. Union occupations and raiding of Lewisburg followed, including the raiding of one of Mathews' properties during the fall of 1863 while he was away in Richmond for the state legislature. In a letter to a son, Mathews recalled, "hey appropriated everything they wished when they went, many fared worse than I did. I think we ought to be thankful that they treated us no worse." He cited the loss of farming equipment, a vehicle, a horse, livestock, material goods, and an enslaved person named Ned, who likely left with the Union troops.

Later life

When the Confederacy dissolved, the Greenbrier County seat in the Virginia House of Delegates was abolished, and it became a permanent seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates. Along with all other Confederate soldiers and office holders, Mathews was barred from holding state office, and retired from politics at age 61. His eldest son, Henry M. Mathews, was elected to the West Virginia Senate in 1865, but was unable to take his seat due to these restrictions. When the restrictions were overturned, the younger Mathews would go on to become 5th governor of West Virginia.
Mason Mathews died of pneumonia at his home in Lewisburg on September 16, 1878, at the age of 74. He was buried at the Old Stone Church in Lewisburg, West Virginia.
West Virginia Governor George W. Atkinson, in Prominent Men of West Virginia, said that "In addition to being elected to numerous subordinate county positions, Mason Mathews was an efficient representative of Greenbrier County in the Legislature of Virginia. His many virtues and deserving qualities as a man both in public and private life caused him to be held in high esteem by his fellow citizens up to the time of his death." Callahan, in 1923, described Mathews as "one of the most notable citizens of Greenbrier County in the last century."
Mathews' daughter, Virginia Amanda Mathews, married Alfred S. Patrick, and in 1863 named their first son Mason Mathews Patrick. He went on to be the Chief of the US Air Service, AEF during World War I, and again from 1921-1926. In 1926 he drafted the Congressional bill that created the US Air Corps from the Air Service, and he served as the first Chief of the Air Corps from 1926-1927.