Matthew F. Colovin

Colovin departed at the conclusion of the 1868–69 academic year and relocated to Vicksburg, Mississippi.^[9] He taught French as a private tutor until 1872, when he was admitted to practice law in Mississippi.^[10]

On October 2, 1885, Colovin shot and killed Dan Steel, an African American man, in Sunflower County, Mississippi.^[11] Newspaper accounts note the likelihood that both men had been drinking. Colovin was charged with murder but despite the “almost universal opinion of all who closely followed the evidence in the case [and] regarded a conviction as beyond question,” was acquitted.^[12]

In 1888 Colovin was charged with violating liquor laws in Vicksburg.^[13] The State agreed not to prosecute, and shortly thereafter, Colovin relocated to Louisville, Kentucky.^[14]

In 1892 Colovin was admitted to the bar of the Jefferson County Circuit Court in Louisville.^[15] Sometime thereafter he was affiliated with the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani.^[16]

Due to continued problems with alcohol, Colovin was involuntarily committed to the Central Kentucky Asylum for the Insane on May 21, 1900.^[17][18] He died there on June 17, 1900.^[16]

Matthew Colovin's brother, Rev. Patrick J. Colovin, served as the fifth president of the University of Notre Dame years after Matthew's departure from the university.^[8]