Matthew Locke

1730 (age 71)

Locke went from Pennsylvania to piedmont North Carolina about 1752 and settled near the present city of Salisbury, Rowan County. Before the Revolution he achieved local prominence as justice of the peace, vestryman, and member of the House of Commons, 1770-1771, and 1773-1775. In the Regulator disturbance he was a moderate, apparently preserving the confidence of both parties; in January 1771 he favored the legislative regulation of official fees and in the following March was a representative of the county officials on a joint committee for the final determination of disputed cases involving fees, arising between the Regulators and the county officials, one of whom (Francis Locke) was his brother. He was active in the patriot cause before and during the Revolution, as an agent and member of the Rowan Committee of Safety (1774 - 1776) in its execution of the resolves of the Continental and Provincial congresses and its discipline of Loyalists; as a delegate to the Third (August 1775), Fourth (April 1776), and Fifth (November 1776) Provincial congresses; as paymaster, brigadier-general, and auditor for the district of Salisbury; and as a member of the state House of Commons (1777-1781, 1783 - 1784, and 1789-1792) and of the Senate (1781 - 1782, and 1784). His stubborn hostility to the adoption of the federal Constitution is shown by his votes in the Hillsborough Convention of 1788 and in the Fayetteville Convention of the next year, and by his selection in 1788 as a North Carolina delegate to a projected second federal convention. Numerous important committee assignments attest his influence in the colonial and state political bodies of which he was a member. From 1793 to 1799 Locke represented the Salisbury district in the national House of Representatives. So far as the records show, he never participated in the debates of Congress and he usually cast a negative vote. He was defeated in August 1798 (3, 131 votes to 231) by Archibald Henderson of Salisbury. "The Election of Mr. Henderson is very honourable to him and his Constituents, " wrote President Adams. But the Federalist excesses of 1798 and the passing of the French crisis strengthened Republicanism in North Carolina; and Locke, though defeated by Henderson in the congressional election of 1800, polled a larger vote than in 1798 and was mentioned as a senatorial candidate in the Republican General Assembly of 1800. At the opening of the Revolution, he was operating a wagon line between points in piedmont North Carolina and Charleston, South Carolina, but agriculture was his chief occupation. He acquired considerable landholdings in Rowan and Iredell counties and in Tennessee. He was a trustee of Salisbury Academy, incorporated in 1784. His common sense, character, and faithfulness to the will of his rural constituents kept him in public life almost steadily for thirty years. On September 7, 1801, at his home near Salisbury, he "breathed his last, a firm and fixed Republican. "

Matthew Locke

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Background

Matthew Locke, the son of John and Elizabeth Locke was born in 1730 in the north of Ireland, from where his family migrated to America.

Career

Locke went from Pennsylvania to piedmont North Carolina about 1752 and settled near the present city of Salisbury, Rowan County. Before the Revolution he achieved local prominence as justice of the peace, vestryman, and member of the House of Commons, 1770-1771, and 1773-1775.

In the Regulator disturbance he was a moderate, apparently preserving the confidence of both parties; in January 1771 he favored the legislative regulation of official fees and in the following March was a representative of the county officials on a joint committee for the final determination of disputed cases involving fees, arising between the Regulators and the county officials, one of whom (Francis Locke) was his brother.

He was active in the patriot cause before and during the Revolution, as an agent and member of the Rowan Committee of Safety (1774 - 1776) in its execution of the resolves of the Continental and Provincial congresses and its discipline of Loyalists; as a delegate to the Third (August 1775), Fourth (April 1776), and Fifth (November 1776) Provincial congresses; as paymaster, brigadier-general, and auditor for the district of Salisbury; and as a member of the state House of Commons (1777-1781, 1783 - 1784, and 1789-1792) and of the Senate (1781 - 1782, and 1784).

His stubborn hostility to the adoption of the federal Constitution is shown by his votes in the Hillsborough Convention of 1788 and in the Fayetteville Convention of the next year, and by his selection in 1788 as a North Carolina delegate to a projected second federal convention. Numerous important committee assignments attest his influence in the colonial and state political bodies of which he was a member. From 1793 to 1799 Locke represented the Salisbury district in the national House of Representatives. So far as the records show, he never participated in the debates of Congress and he usually cast a negative vote.

He was defeated in August 1798 (3, 131 votes to 231) by Archibald Henderson of Salisbury. "The Election of Mr. Henderson is very honourable to him and his Constituents, " wrote President Adams. But the Federalist excesses of 1798 and the passing of the French crisis strengthened Republicanism in North Carolina; and Locke, though defeated by Henderson in the congressional election of 1800, polled a larger vote than in 1798 and was mentioned as a senatorial candidate in the Republican General Assembly of 1800.

At the opening of the Revolution, he was operating a wagon line between points in piedmont North Carolina and Charleston, South Carolina, but agriculture was his chief occupation. He acquired considerable landholdings in Rowan and Iredell counties and in Tennessee. He was a trustee of Salisbury Academy, incorporated in 1784. His common sense, character, and faithfulness to the will of his rural constituents kept him in public life almost steadily for thirty years. On September 7, 1801, at his home near Salisbury, he "breathed his last, a firm and fixed Republican. "

Achievements

During the Revolutionary War, Matthew Locke served as a brigadier-general of the state troops. He served over ten years in the State legislature before being elected for three terms as a United States Representative from North Carolina. He was also the sixth largest slaveholder in his county in 1790.

Politics

Locke was an extreme Jeffersonian Republican who believed that the best government is the one which governs least and most economically. He was hostile to the Federalist policies of the administrations of Washington and Adams and was one of the twelve radical Republicans in the House who voted against the complimentary reply to Washington's message of December 7, 1796. He opposed to the popular measures for national defense in the spring of 1798, when war with France was impending.

Personality

Locke was rural, provincial, uneducated, religious, with little knowledge of statecraft and international relations.

Connections

In 1749 Locke was married to Mary Elizabeth Brandon, and in later life to Mrs. Elizabeth Gostelowe of Philadelphia.

Father:: John Locke
Mother:: Elizabeth Locke
Spouse:: Mary Elizabeth Brandon
Spouse:: Elizabeth Gostelowe
Brother:: Francis Locke

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Matthew Locke

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