Henry Mason Mathews

Background

Henry Mason Mathews was the eldest son of Mason and Eliza Shore (Reynolds) Mathews. He was born on March 29, 1834 in Greenbrier County, Virginia, now West Virginia. His mother was a sister of Alexander Welch Reynolds.

Education

The elder Mathews was a successful merchant and was able to give his son good opportunities for schooling. Young Mathews was prepared for college at the Lewisburg academy and in his eighteenth year entered the University of Virginia. He was a student there from 1852 to 1856 and received the A. B. degree in 1855 and the A. M. degree in 1856. After leaving the university he studied law for one year in the school conducted by Judge John W. Brockenbrough, of Lexington, Va.

Career

In 1857 he began the practice of the law at Lewisburg, the county seat of Greenbrier County. For a short period before the Civil War he added to his duties as an attorney the teaching of modern languages and history in Allegheny College, a school for boys at Blue Sulphur Springs. When hostilities broke out he enlisted in the Confederate service and by the end of the war had attained the rank of major. At the close of the war he returned to Lewisburg, but for a while was debarred from the practice of his profession by the proscriptive laws against former Confederates. In like manner he was also excluded from the state Senate, although he had been elected by an overwhelming majority. In 1872 he was a member of the state convention that framed the present constitution of West Virginia. He was in this same year also elected attorney-general of the state. Four years later, in 1876, he was nominated by the Democratic party for governor and was elected by a very large majority. He became governor at a time when passions born of civil war and reconstruction ran high. The keynote of his inaugural address was harmony, and the policy of his administration was characterized by the same spirit. He appointed representatives of both parties on all important governmental boards, a practice that was unusual for that period. The most dramatic event of his four-year term was the great railroad strike, which was caused by a ten per cent reduction in the wages of employees of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. It started at Martinsburg in July 1877 and soon spread to other points in West Virginia and to other states, since the same reduction in wages had been made by other railroad systems. The mob violence that attended the strike at Martinsburg was beyond the control of the police authorities, and at other places outbreaks were threatening. He insisted that grievances, however great, must be redressed through legal means alone, and so he promptly ordered out the state militia, but the force at his command was too small to cope with the riot. Thereupon he called upon the president for federal troops. This request was complied with, and order was promptly restored. Mathews showed the same firmness in dealing with the coal strike that broke out along the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway three years later, in January 1880. The strikers, who were threatening injury to persons and the destruction of property, were moving toward the Ansted mines in Fayette County to compel the miners there to cease work. At the request of the sheriff of the county he promptly sent a battalion of infantry and all disorder was quickly put down. The last few years of his life were spent at Lewisburg in the practice of his profession.

Achievements

• Henry M. Mathews is known as the 7th Attorney General and 5th Governor of West Virginia. He was the first ex-Confederate elected to a governorship in the United States, and his election has been regarded as beginning of the era of the Bourbon Democrat.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, Volume 25

    (This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before ...)

  • Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, Volume 8

    (This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before ...)

  • Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, Volume 36

    (This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before ...)

Politics

In policy Mathews was a strict Bourbon Democrat, being a proponent of increased immigration, improved transportation, expansion of the coal and oil industries, and funding to establish a state geological survey.

Personality

He was well qualified by temperament, education, and experience for the task of allaying strife and of mediating between the opposing parties. His genial disposition and gentle demeanor enabled him to make contacts with his political opponents with a minimum of friction.

Quotes from others about the person

• "He was not a good come-and-take debater, but when he had prepared himself to make an oration on the issues of the day, he was splendid. His oratory was easy, smooth, perfectly balanced, his voice was splendidly modulated, his gestures were perfect, and he could make as fine an impression on a rather cultivated audience as any man in the state. " — William A. MacCorkle
  
  "At this time there was less wealth per capita in West Virginia than in 1865, the result of which had a pronounced effect upon State politics. Those highest up in the social scale held the highest political positions and the entire organization became dangerously corrupt. "The social, political, and economic ills of West Virginia were not to be cured nor even successfully treated during Mathews' administration nor during his life time. " — Mary L. Rickard
  
  "He is a patriotic, broad, and liberal minded ex-Confederate who had fully accepted the results of the Civil War and was well fitted to lead in meeting living issues. " - James Callahan

Connections

On November 24, 1857 he married Lucy Clayton Fry, the daughter of Judge Joseph L. Fry, of Wheeling. They had two daughters and a son.

Father:

Mason Mathews

15 December 1803 - 16 September 1878

Mother:

Eliza Shore Reynolds Mathews

26 April 1808 - 2 January 1874

Brother:

Capt Joseph William Mathews

18 September 1841 - 27 September 1897

Brother:

Alexander Ferdinand Mathews

13 November 1838 - 17 December 1906

Sister:

Sallie Patton Mathews Dunn

22 August 1847 - 8 April 1928

Sister:

Eliza Thomas Mathews Mathews

2 August 1844 - 18 May 1931

Sister:

Sallie Ann Mathews

18 December 1830 - 6 January 1834

Sister:

Mary Edgar Mathews Mauzy

23 July 1828 - 12 April 1883

Wife:

Lucy Clayton Fry Mathews

1836 - 1904

Daughter:

Lucille “Josephine” Mathews

5 April 1871 - 15 December 1949

Daughter:

Laura Hearne Mathews

19 January 1881 - 14 April 1899

Son:

Mason Mathews

15 August 1873 - 1 December 1873

Son:

Henry Edgar Mathews

28 February 1874 - 22 September 1876