Thomas Mathews was born c. 1742 on Saint Kitts, an island of the West Indies. His father was Samuel Mathews. Mathews emigrated to Virginia in 1764.
In 1773 he married Molly Miller, daughter of Captain Matthias and Ann (Eady) Miller of Norfolk County.[3]
Military career
In 1775 Mathews became Lieutenant of the Norfolk County militia, then accepted a commission as captain in 1776 and command of Fort Nelson, which protected Portsmouth, Virginia and the nearby Gosport naval yard, which was very important following the departure of Lord Dunmore from the capital at Williamsburg to British ships in the Hampton Roads area of Chesapeake Bay.
In 1777, Mathews was assigned to the artillery regiment of Col. Thomas Marshall, with the rank of major. He was in command when British General Edward Mathew landed at Port Norfolk in 1779. He received a promotion to lieutenant colonel on November 8, 1779, and another to brigadier general before the Battle of Yorktown. Mathews later became an active member of the Society of the Cincinnati.
Political career
Norfolk County voters first elected Mathews as one of their representatives to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1781, and re-elected him and his fellow delegate Thomas Newton once, before Mathews' first brief gap in his part-time legislative service, in 1783. Beginning in May 1784, Mathews represented Norfolk Borough for several years, before reverting again to Norfolk County in 1797.[4] Fellow members elected him Speaker.[5] Mathews became the first speaker in the present Capitol building in Richmond, remaining as such through the 1793 legislation.
An eminent member of the Norfolk Bar, Mathews also represented Norfolk at the Virginia Ratifying Convention of 1788, which ratified the federal Constitution.[6]
Mathews died in Norfolk borough on February 20, 1812 and was buried at St. Paul's Churchyard. A portrait of him by Mrs. William Hodges Mann Jr. hands in the courthouse in Mathews.[3]
^Jamerson, Bruce F., Clerk of the House of Delegates, supervising (2007). Speakers and Clerks of the Virginia House of Delegates, 1776-2007. Richmond, Virginia: Virginia House of Delegates. p. 27.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Cynthia Miller Leonard, The Virginia General Assembly 1619-1978 (Richmond: Virginia State Library 1978) pp. 142, 146, 154, 157, 161, 165, 168, 169, 176, 180, 184, 188, 192, 208, 216
^Lexington Gazette (1938). "Capt. John Mathews and his Descendants." 1738–1938. Bi-centennial Issue: Commemorating the Settlement of the Rockbridge Section of Virginia by the White Men. A Tribute to the Scotch-Irish Pioneers. Lexington Gazette (Virginia)