There are two documents that people researching this family will probably come across at some point. The first and earliest is a manuscript written by a Dr. J. C. Mathews and distributed, probably in some sort of pamphlet or loose leaf form, shortly after the death of Dr. Mathews in 1915. There are several errors that Dr. Mathews makes in his document which will be discussed below.

After dispensing with nearly seven pages of who begat whom starting at the very unlikely date of nearly 1000 BC Dr. Mathews finally arrives at the father of Virginia governor Samuel Mathews, also named Samuel Mathews, and then proceeds for a few more pages before arriving at a great-granddaughter of Governor Mathews: Mary Mathews. At this point he makes an incredible leap and states, without proof, that she was the husband of an Isaac Mathews, son of James Mathews, who would die in Halifax County, NC in 1768. After this he then proceeds with a discussion of a child of Isaac and Mary named Moses who in fact was not a son of theirs. The fact that there is no proof that this Moses was their son aside, he then relates the generations after Moses who had settled in Georgia.

The second document that a Mathews researcher may come across is The Mat(t)hews Family by John R. Boots (published 1970). Mr. Boots compiles several anthologies of various unrelated Mathews lines and relies heavily upon the earlier work of Dr. J. C. Mathews for his section on the Mathews of Georgia. Mr. Boots does not seem to present any new information on the line of Moses Mathews beyond what Dr. Mathews does. I mention it here since his book is far more accessible to genealogists in libraries than the Dr. Mathews manuscript is.

After seeing the data from the Dr. James C. Mathews manuscript and then see it used extensively in the book by John R. Boots I found myself thinking there was a lot more to the story that could be discovered with some digging. After getting into the details I came to the conclusion that a good deal of Dr. Mathews' ideas about the ancestry of his Moses Mathews were incorrect. To be fair, Dr. Mathews did not have the benefit of the large volumes of microfilm and transcribed books in the early 1900s that we have today. What I find more astounding is the lack of questioning by those who have used his genealogy without asking some obvious questions such as:

• Why does he call the first Samuel Mathews "governor"? His son, Samuel Mathews, Jr. was governor. This subject is dissected extremely well by Minnie G. Cook in The William and Mary Quarterly, 2nd Series, Volume 14, No. 2 (April 1934) pp. 105-113.
• Not so much a question, but an observation, is the lineage of Bishop Tobias Mathew. It has now been proven that his son Samuel Mathews died well before the Samuel Mathews in his manuscript's lineage ever arrived in the colony of Virginia. This fact nullifies his lineages prior to Samuel Mathews. For evidence of this check this web site which references primary sources.
• Why does he claim that the wife of Isaac Mathews Sr was from King and Queen County, VA and why must her last name be Mathews? Looking at a map King and Queen County is a good ways from Brunswick County, VA. All evidence points to the elder Isaac Mathews as being born in southside Virginia. I have not come across any evidence to support him being from or having any connection to King and Queen County. I am quite sure it is possible that there was an Isaac and Mary Mathews in King and Queen County at the appropriate time who were married, yet there is no evidence to support this supposed Isaac and Mary as being the ones who eventually settled in Halifax County, NC.
• I am at a complete loss as to why he claimed Isaac and Mary moved to Halifax County, VA. Halifax County, VA was not formed until 1752, which is 28 years after he claims that Isaac and Mary moved there. Perhaps he meant Halifax County, NC where Isaac died? If he meant NC then why does he repeat his mistake by continuing to say Halifax County, VA? To further complicate matters Halifax County, NC was not created until 1758. It is the repeated small mistakes like this that should set off warning bells for anyone reading the manuscript.
• Why does he say that Isaac and Mary and their family moved to Old Charles City, SC in 1767 or 1768? There is no Old Charles City, SC. There is Charles Towne which became Charleston (no evidence to support them ever moving there) and there is Charles City County in Virginia (again, no evidence to support them moving there or even WHY they would move there -- by and large people were migrating south and west, not back north).
• Why does he say that the parents (supposedly Isaac and Mary Mathews) of his ancestor Moses Mathews were poor? There is only the unsourced and undocumented claim of Dr. Mathews that Moses was a son of the Isaac and Mary of Halifax County. Aside from that there is absolutely no evidence that he was their son. Even if we were to assume that he was their son we must accept the volume of evidence supporting the fact that they were at least land wealthy (refer to the deed abstracts found here on this site). The remainder of Isaac's family certainly were land wealthy; they were important members of the community of Halifax County, NC. Some were judges, attorneys and jurists. They held land beside other important families of that county including the Davis's, the Pullens, the Brinkley's and others. Several were qualified as militia officers, and that wasn't likely to happen unless you had some importance in the community. Just looking at the records that we have available to us from Halifax County there is no way I could imagine anyone coming away with the conclusion that this family was "poor". Not that they were rich by modern terms, but they definitely were not poor either.

Just from these questions alone I have to hold the entire manuscript at arms length. He claimed to have some papers that belonged to Moses Mathews in his possession that proved these things as well as the will of Isaac Mathews of Halifax County, NC (even though he says Isaac died in SC). Where are these papers? As things stand now I am completely comfortable with stating that this Moses Mathews was not a son of the Isaac Mathews of Halifax County, NC. The Moses Mathews who settled first in Fairfield County, SC and then Georgia is of an entirely different line. Only DNA will likely prove this out one way or the other.

Exactly where my Mathews line originated prior to the most distant known ancestor, James Mathews, cannot be stated with certainty. It seems likely to me that James was the same James Mathews mentioned in a June 1688 Charles City County court record along with a brother, Thomas Charles Mathews.

It seems likely to me that this James Mathews mentioned here is my ancestor. First, prior to coming across this bit of detail I had estimated the birth of James to be around 1680. The above court order certainly fits with that theory. Second, is the mention of "Thomas Charles Mathews", his brother. For some time I've been struggling with identifying another man with the same name who lived in Northampton County, NC (only a few miles away from where James and his sons would settle in Halifax County). This other Thomas Charles Mathews was established in North Carolina at least as early as 1721 when he buys land in Chowan District (Northampton would be spun out of this area a number of years later). His wife was Margaret Fellows and her father, Robert Fellows, lived along the Nottoway River in Virginia, apparently not too far away from where my James Matthews lived (I've not been able to pinpoint the precise location of his land). As the Nottoway was an important method of transportation, especially for the transport of tobacco, it would seem likely that the families knew each other to some degree. Third, the usage of middle names in the 1600's was very uncommon. At this point in time virtually the only people that had them were Germans and British aristocracy. I certainly don't want to suggest that the family were landed gentry and I find it hard to believe that they would have been German due mainly to the fact that Germans, at this point in time, were not migrating to Virginia by and large.

So, we have a Thomas Charles Mathews with ties to Surry/Brunswick Counties, VA in the same vicinity as my James Mathews via his wife Margaret Fellows. Thomas lived not very far away (perhaps 15 to 20 miles) from where James settled in North Carolina. And, finally, we have individuals with the nearly unique distinguishing feature of the middle name of "Charles". I think it is a safe assumption to believe that the Thomas Charles Mathews mentioned in the Charles City County record is the same as the Thomas Charles Mathews who bought land in Chowan Precinct, North Carolina in 1721. Therefore, with the circumstantial evidence at hand, I conclude that the James Mathews mentioned in the Charles City County 1688 court order is my ancestor and that the Thomas Charles Mathews of Northampton County is his brother.

From the previous paragraphs we find a good bit of evidence for James Mathews Sr., his brother Thomas Charles Mathews and his mother and step-father living somewhere in the vicinity of Charles City County at least as early as 1688 (see map below for early boundaries of Charles City County). Of the father of James and Thomas we can only conclude that he died sometime prior to June 1688. Their widowed mother would have most likely remarried within months as was the custom during those years. It is likely that her fatherless sons would have been apprenticed out shortly after their father's death so at a guess I would say that their father died no more than a year prior to the court order record.

There is an interesting list of debtors from Surry County (adjacent to Charles City County) in March of 1686/87 (March 1687 in the Gregorian calendar) to the estate of Thomas Jordan. Among those oweing money to the esate were Thomas Mathews, James Mathews and John Mathews (John's name was listed twice so either their were two Johns or he was mistakenly listed twice). Were these three men related? We can't draw any conclusions from this alone. Since the list appeared a year before James and Thomas appeared in the court record as minors I have to conclude that they were probably not any of the men mentioned. It is interesting to note that the names Thomas, James and John are the most common first names in the descendants of James Mathews Sr. so it seems quite possible that one of these men was the father of James and Thomas Charles Mathews.

James Mathews Sr. was living along the Nottoway River in the area that would become Brunswick County, VA at least as early as 1708.

The map above can be used to illustrate the borders of Virginia counties as we attempt to track the early movements of James Mathews. The white lines are the modern day county borders of Virginia and the black lines show the county lines in 1686. We can see that even up to 1688 Charles City County encompassed a huge amount of land including the area where we can later pinpoint where James later lived. For perspective I have labeled modern day Brunswick County in red. The Nottoway River forms the northern border of that county. Moving forward in time a little we next find James Mathews listed in a 1701/2 militia roll for Charles City County. Referring to the map above we see that Charles City County encompassed much of Virginia to the west of the original Surry County line. A couple of years later we find James in the 1704 quit rent roll for Prince George County where he is shown owning 100 acres of land.

Between 1701 and 1704, even though James is listed in two different counties, he did not move because as we can see from a comparison of the 1686 and 1704 maps Charles City County shrunk dramatically to make way for the newly created Prince George County. Based upon descriptions of the land held by James and the descriptions of the locations of the land held by his neighbors I strongly feel that he was living somewhere along the Nottoway River either in Surry County or Prince George County. In later years it is quite obvious, based upon the descriptions in the deed records, that he held land on both sides of the Nottoway River in western modern day Brunswick County.

Using the deed records we can clearly see that James had four sons named James Jr., Isaac (my line), Charles and Matthew. We know this from four deeds written in, respectively, 1735, twice in 1741 and 1743 where he gives land to these four sons and names them explicitly as his sons in the deeds. After dispensing with most of his plots of land James moves to that part of Edgecombe County, NC that would become Halifax County. Additionally, as will be pointed out later he had another son, probably the eldest, named Thomas.

So, to recap, James Mathews Sr. had at least five known sons: Thomas, James Jr., Isaac, Charles and Matthew. It is possible that he had a sixth son named John. John's name appears sporadically in the records of Surry, Brunswick and Lunenburg Counties alongside the known sons of James Sr, but I've yet to find proof that he was a son of James.

Of the daughters of James Mathews we know nothing other than that he had more than one who survived his passing. He had at least two as his will mentions "sisters" of his son Thomas, but does not name them. In the deed records of Brunswick County are two transactions where James gives or sells land to two men: Griffen Humphris and John Morton. That these two men were already living on land that is right in the thick of the area where James and his sons lived is to me important. Also, he sold/gave the land to these two men months before he moved to North Carolina in the same year that he gave land to his sons Isaac and Charles. This highly suggests to me that the men were sons-in-law. I make no claims one way or the other on this, but offer it as a possibility. Another bit of possible evidence for at least one daughter of James is found in the Albemarle Parish church register of Surry County in 1739/40 where we can see that Frances Mathews and James Mathews (who was probably the son of James Mathews Sr.) were named as a godparents to another James who was the son of Thomas and Elizabeth Mathews (this Thomas is the eldest son of James Sr. as will be illustrated below). Thomas also named one of his daughters Frances. She seems an unlikely candidate for the christening event, but it is possible that she was named for a sister of Thomas.

The wife of James Mathews Sr was named Jean, or Jane. Both names are seen in original source records. The names Jean and Jane at this point in history are synonomous so they refer to the same person. Beyond this we don't know much about her. For various reasons I speculate that she may have been a Jordan, a Browne, a Greene or a Maybury.

Sometime around 1742, between December 1741 and May 1742, James Mathews Sr. moved to Edgecombe County, NC. He lived in the western portion of Edgecombe from which Halifax County was formed in 1758. In particular he settled around the Little Fishing Creek (originally called Conoway Creek) and Fish Pond Branch.

During this period of time it was common for children to seek more land for themselves. Typically it was easy to obtain as the colonies wanted to fill up their open regions. More available land meant more families filling it up. Larger families meant more hands to work the land. More hands in the family and more hands yielding more profitable crops (e.g. tobacco, rice and indigo) meant more tax revenue for the government. Yet, strangely enough, it was James Mathews Sr. who first made the move south to North Carolina while his children stayed behind in Brunswick County. By 1742 I estimate James Mathews Sr. to have been around 55 to 60 years of age, rather old in my opinion to be making a move without the rest of his family in tow. Perhaps it was the intent for James Sr. to find a good spot to settle his family and his children would join him afterwards. Within a few months son James Jr. moved to where his father was and Thomas soon followed. In 1746 Isaac and Charles are mentioned in the Edgecombe County deed books as being "of Brunswick County, VA" and buying land in Edgecombe County.

It should be noted that Charles Mathews apparently did not stay very long in North Carolina. By 1753 he appears to have sold his land in Edgecombe County and his name begins to reappear in the Brunswick County, VA deed books. It is possible that the Charles Mathews mentioned during this time was a child of Thomas Mathews. He did have a son named Charles who would evetually move to Chatham County, NC, however, I do not think that the Charles in all of the NC deed records was the son of Thomas. Comparing the deed records of Brunswick County and Edgecombe County there is a noticeable gap where we do not find Charles mentioned in the Brunswick County records. To me this is evidence that he was in NC at the time and hence would not have been around. Once the Charles Mathews of Edgecombe County sold his land in 1753 we start to see his name appearing in the Brunswick County records once again.

As noted above James Mathews had five, possibly six, sons and at least two daughters.

I've not found any documents to precisely date the birth of James Sr. or any of his children. For the birth of James Sr. I've primarily used the earliest known record for him and subtracted 20 years from it. That earliest date is the 1701/2 record of his militia participation in Charles City County. The date of his death is much more certain. James did leave a will in Halifax County, NC, but not many people know about it. The will is incorrectly filed under the name of his son "Thomas Matthis" in Margaret Hofmann's widely used Genealogical Abstracts of Wills, 1758-1824 Halifax County, North Carolina. For some time this completely threw me off. I found it hard to believe that absolutely no record of the passing of James would exist. While I do not want to claim that he was wealthy by modern terms I would definitely say that was upper middle class at least. Several records refer to him as a "planter". The word planter in colonial times implied a plantation owner of means. If he were less successful he would have been refered to as merely a farmer or yeoman. Recently a descendant of Thomas Mathews, son of James, got in touch with me and faxed me a complete type written copy of the will of James Mathews. This transcription makes note that there is a hand written comment on the original will that the will should be assigned to James Mathews. Additionally, and more importantly, the transcription shows that the will was signed by James Mathews. I always find myself telling people to check the originals. I assure you that many modern abstracts and transcriptions of original source documents contain errors. I have found many errors over the years myself, but for this particular document I broke my own rule and had never checked the original. Of the sons of James Mathews Sr. I am far less certain of their dates of birth. For the moment I am reasonably certain that Thomas was the eldest. I have several reasons for thinking this, but the primary reason amongst them is that Thomas is the only child of James named in his will. All of his other children are brushed off with a generic statement of "...Thomas Mathess [sic] brothers and sisters". James does mention one grandchild, Charles, who is a son of Thomas. James also bequeaths his part of a water mill to Thomas. I take it that the water mill was jointly owned by several families along Little Fishing Creek or its tributaries so they could grind their own wheat or corn. I can only assume that Thomas is his eldest son if James is passing along his share of the water mill to him. At any rate, if Thomas was his eldest son and if James was married roughly by the time of his militia service then Thomas probably would have been born around 1700, but most likely no later than 1705. Thomas's death would have been sometime between 18 October 1764 when his will was written and April 1765 when it was proven in court. The second son of James Mathews Sr. was probably James Mathews Jr. The earliest record we have for James Mathews Jr. is a 1728 grant where he received 850 acres of land in southwestern Brunswick County south of the Roanoke River. This land is a fair distance from where the James Mathews Sr. family is known to have lived. It does not appear that James Jr. ever settled on this land, and it may have been land that he acquired solely with the intent of selling it (which he did a few years later). Virtually every record we have of James Jr. where he is buying or selling land his wife Anne is mentioned. The first time Anne is named is a 1733 deed where he sold part of his 850 acre grant. James would have had to have been at least 21 when he received his 850 acre grant. So, assuming that he was in fact 21 in 1728 he would have had to have been born no later than 1707. As was the case with his father James Jr's name is quite prevalent in the deed records of southern Virginia and especially Halifax County, NC. The wife of James Jr. is very often confused with the wife of James Sr. in many internet genealogies on this family. By looking at ALL of the deed records of James Sr. and Jr. it is very clear that there was one James married to Jean/Jane and one married to Anne and that Ann and Jean were contemporaries. Jean's name appears far too early in the records for her to have been married to James Jr. The third and fourth sons of James Mathews Sr. were most likely Charles and Isaac Sr., but I have nothing on which to base who was born first between the two of them. On 20 Jan 1741 their father gave each of them land via deeds of gift. Since Isaac's deed was listed first I've always listed him as the third child. The first time Isaac's name appears in the records is a 1735 deed in which he was a witness. According to English law one only had to be 14 years of age to witness a deed. However, based on the fact that he had 10 children by the time of his death and several of those were adults I'm sure his birth was much earlier in the 18th century, probably between 1705 and 1710. Isaac was married to Mary (last name unknown). Based upon erroneous information in the Dr. J.C. Mathews manuscript which was in turn copied by John R. Boots for his book on the Mathews family a great number of people state that Isaac's wife was Mary Mathews, a descendant of Governor Samuel Mathews of Virginia. There is absolutely no evidence for this whatsoever. Isaac died in Halifax County, North Carolina in 1768 and left a will naming his wife and ten children. Charles Mathews was probably born in the same time frame as his brother Isaac Mathews, sometime between 1705 and 1710. His name first appears in the records when he witnesses a 1733 Brunswick County deed along with his brother James Mathews Jr. and John Mathews. Unlike the rest of his family Charles lived most of his life in Brunswick County, VA. Based on the deeds of Halifax County, NC and Brunswick County, VA it appears that he did live in Halifax County for a while in the 1740s to 1750s, but eventually returned to Brunswick County. Charles was married at least twice. His first wife was possibly named Lucretia and his second wife was Elizabeth, widow of William Hammond. Charles died sometime before November 1780 when his will was proven in Brunswick County court. The final known child of James and Jane Mathews was their son Matthew. We know very little about him other than the fact that he was named as a child of James Sr. in a 1743 deed of gift. Note that this deed of gift was granted two years after the gifts granted to his brothers Isaac and Charles. I'm not sure of the significance of the 2 year delay in his receiving land after his brothers. From a 1748 deed we know that his first wife's name was Judith. Later, as indicated in Lunenburg County records, we learn that he married a second time to Martha Russell. Lunenburg County deed records show that he fathered a child, Philemon, with Martha and his estate records indicate that a son, also named Matthew, filed for administration bonds on his estate in 1784. These few facts are the extent of what the source records tell us. Beyond this I can speculate a little further about Matthew. In 1748 Matthew sold the 200 acres that his father had given him in 1743. Assuming this was all the land he had in Brunswick County he must have gone somewhere. The only place we see Judith's name is in the deed where Matthew sold the land his father gave him. Maybe her father gave them land to live on and they moved? Maybe her family decided to emigrate west and he went with them? There is a 1753 record of a Granville grant given to a Francis Mabry in Granville County, NC. This Francis Mabry is known to be the son of a Francis Mabry that Matthew's father James had known at least as early as 1702 when their names appeared together on the militia roll for Charles City County. The two families lived beside each other for at least 25 years in Brunswick County. Listed on the Granville grant as a sworn chain carrier (a person who is legally entrusted to assist a survyor in provisioning land) was Matthew Matthews. A Matthew Mathews also appears in the Granville County, NC militia lists in the 1750s. Was this Matthew the son of James Mathews Sr.? I cannot say for certain, but it seems a good possibility.


Within the span of 1762-1775 James Sr. and his sons Thomas, James Jr. and Isaac had died. Son Charles, who lived most of his life in Brunswick County, Va would pass in 1781. By this time the Mathews family had grown quite large and the land they held in Halifax County could not contain the growing families. Beginning in the 1760s some family groups would start to move away, some to other counties in NC and some out of state. The Revolutionary War put a temporary hold on the migrations. Due to the uncertainty of which power in the conflict had the ability to grant or distribute land most people were hesitant to move. While I can say for certain that some men in the Mathews families in Halifax County did fight for freedom in the local militias as well as the Continental Army it would probably be difficult to determine exactly how many did so. A subject like this is often inquired about when people begin to learn about their family history. They either want to know if their ancestors fought in the Revolution for the colonies or if their ancestors fought in the Civil War. The answer to both is a definite yes with this Mathews family. Many Revolutionary War rosters have been lost to us, but enough exist that I have been able to find sons or grandsons of Thomas Mathews, James Jr., Charles and Isaac Mathews in the roster rolls.

Continue reading here...

Since the last major revision to the web site I've added the following to the family narrative:

Added new info on Thomas Charles Mathews and his connection to James Mathews Sr.

Added more details to the children of Charles Mathews and where they migrated.

Added family of Charlotte Pullen, daughter of James Mathews Jr.

Several minor corrections.

©2007 Greg Matthews