16 Facts About Mason Mathews

Mason Mathews was an American merchant and politician in the US State of Virginia.

Mason Mathews was a member of the Mathews political family.

Mason Mathews was born on December 15,1803, in Lewisburg, Greenbrier County, Virginia, to Mary Edgar and Joseph Mathews.

One of his great-uncles, Archer Mason Mathews, served as an original trustee of the City of Lewisburg when it was founded in 1782.

Mason Mathews was a boy when his father died, and he found work as a local store clerk to support his family.

Around 1827, Mason Mathews moved to Frankford, Virginia, where he established a successful mercantile business.

Mason Mathews sent his three sons to be educated at the University of Virginia.

Mason Mathews was elected sheriff of Greenbrier County around 1825, under High Sheriff James Andrews.

Mason Mathews 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 appointed to the upper district in 1832.

Mason Mathews 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.

Mason Mathews additionally served as the treasurer of the Board of Commissioners of Free Schools, which raised and deployed funding for the education of poor children in the absence of a public school system.

In 1859, Mason Mathews was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates for Greenbrier County as a representative of the Whig Party.

Mason Mathews chose to ignore the new state, and though he found himself living in Union territory, continued to travel to Richmond, Virginia to represent his county in the Confederate Virginia House of Delegates, where he kept his seat throughout the war.

Mason Mathews was tasked with examining the state Treasurer's accounts.

One son, Alexander F Mathews was assigned to the brigade of General Henry A Wise in the Western Virginia Campaign.

Mason Mathews died of pneumonia at his home in Lewisburg on September 16,1878, at the age of 74, and was buried at the Old Stone Church in Lewisburg, West Virginia.