Thomas Mathews (politician)

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]

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.

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] In 1789, he was the runner-up in the election for the 8th congressional district, losing to Josiah Parker.^[7]

A candidate for the governor of Virginia, Mathews withdrew his nomination.^[2] He was a mason, and in 1790 was elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Virginia. He served as grand master until 1793, at which point the office was passed to John Marshall.^[2]

In 1794, he chaired a meeting in Norfolk and drafted a petition to Congress complaining about British privateers.^[8] Mathews also chaired a meeting in Norfolk on June 24, 1807, which suspended contact between the shore and British warships and establishing a fund to aid the injured and next of kin in the U.S.S. Chesapeake Leopard incident two days before (during which HMS Leopard fired a broadside on the Norfolk-built and -based Chesapeake, killing three and wounding 18 after the British had demanded surrender of two Maryland and one Massachusetts seaman who had been impressed into the Royal Navy but had escaped and enlisted on the Chesapeake).^[9]