The Families

James B. Mathews and Catherine G. Mathews

NEW! Read "The Mathews Family - Pages from the Lives of James B. and Kitty Griffith Mathews, and of their Descencants to the Third and Fourth Generations," published for a 1926 family reunion and graciously shared by Mathews descendant, David McConaughy.

The first family to reside at Bloomsburg from 1830 to September 28, 1888¹

James Mathews purchased the first of at least five land parcels in Glenwood on 7/19/1825.  In 1830, he and his family moved into the “stone” portion of the Bloomsburg house that is still being lived in today.

“History was being made in the 1820’s and 1830’s in this area of Maryland – Baltimore was growing into a great industrial city.  The first steam locomotive, “Tom Thumb”, made its test run from Baltimore to Ellicotts Mills (now Ellicott City).  General Lafayette made a tour of Maryland, during which he and his party were entertained at breakfast at the Roberts Tavern in Cooksville, two miles north of the site which was to become the location for Union Chapel.

James B. Mathews was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1791, an only son with twelve older sisters.  As a young man he came to Sandy Spring, Maryland.  He taught school for two years; worked as a bookkeeper in Georgetown, and at Triadelphia.  In 1818 he married Catherine B. Griffith.  They lived at Roxbury in Anne Arundel County² for several years, where he operated a store.  In 1822, he sold his share of the business to his partner and bought 200 acres of land from Caleb Dorsey on which he built the stone part of “Bloomsburg”, much later known to many as the Mr. and Mrs. William Stinson home, and more recently as the home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Graddick³, in Maryland.

The village of Mathews began in 1841 when James B. Mathews was appointed postmaster and a post office was established in his general store.  In 1874 the village of Mathews changed its name to Glenwood and a new store/post office was built.

The Mathews home burned when James was over ninety years old, and it was noted that he “rode his horse into the woods to select trees for lumber” in order to rebuild.  Mr. and Mrs. Mathews died in the 1880’s⁴ and were buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, which is located next to Union Chapel.”

The Mathews had four children and four grandchildren:

1. Lycurgus G. Mathews, 4/19/1828 - 11/30/1885. Professor Mathews established the Glenwood Institute “on the west side of “Westminster Road”, north of the Post Office and south of Union Chapel.  He married Ruth A. Mathews, 10/20/1826-7/20/1902.  They had one child, Lycurgus G. Mathews 2/11/1864-6/11/1907. Read more about Lycurgus Mathews.
   
   
2. William Mathews, 1831-1923.  He married Harriet A Mathews 1834-1921. William Mathews had 160 acres on the east side of “Westminster Road” approximately where Glenwood Gardens is today.  They had one child, William L. Mathews, 1865-1944.
   
   
3. James E. Mathews, 8/5/1832 -11/22/1918.  He married Sarah Mathews, 9/12/1844 – 10/1/1918.  Dr. James E Mathews had 8 acres of the west side of “Westminster Road”, approximately where Bloomsburg is today.  They had two children, J.E. Mathews, 1870-1921 & M.M. Mathews, 1875-1941.
   
   
4. Alfred Mathews, 1836-1925.  He married Sophia Hood Mathews, 1834 – 10/4/1906.  Alfred had property on the west side of “Westminster Road”, north of the Glenwood Institute and south of Union Chapel.

Information about the Mathews family came in part from the family grave sites at the Oak Grove Cemetery behind the Union Chapel. 

The James B. Mathews family appears in many censuses during the nineteenth century. Images of these census records are provided below:

• 1820 Federal Census
• 1830 Federal Census
• 1840 Federal Census
• 1850 Federal Census
• 1850 Federal Slave Census
• 1860 Federal Slave Census
• 1862-1918 IRS Tax Assessments
• 1864 IRS Tax Assessments
• 1870 Federal Census
• 1880 Federal Census

James B. Mathews died on 6/26/1887.  His will directed that the Bloomsburg property be sold.  Following Mathews’ death, the executor of his estate died without executing Mathews’ will.  W. Edward Fite was appointed Administrator of Mathews’ will by the Orphan Court of Howard County and, on 9/28/1888, he sold Bloomsburg to the Stinsons.

More About the James B. Mathews Family

James Burroughs Mathews, founder of this community, was born 2 November 1791, in Trenton, N.J.  As a very young man he was enough of an adventurer to count among his experiences a ride on the first steamboat, built in 1807 by Robert Fulton.  On 7 April 1818 he married Kitty Griffith, daughter of Capt. Samuel and Ruth Berry Griffith of Montgomery County.  Capt Samuel Griffith, a native of Frederick County, whose father Henry Griffith represented that county in the assembly that organized the Revolution, served on Lafayette’s staff and fought with him at Germantown and the battle of Brandywine.

Upon his marriage to Kitty Griffith, James Mathews opened a general store and post office at Roxbury.  In 1822, his business having outgrown the small community, he moved his family up the road to the area now known as Glenwood, where he had purchased land on both sides of the highway.  There being no sizable houses available, he started almost immediately to build Bloomsburg, known today as the Old Stinson Homestead, while he and his family found shelter in the small stone house across the road, commonly referred to as “the little house by the side of the road.”  When completed, Bloomsburg became the family homestead; it still stands, south of Dependence, the former Pindell home.  Mathews also built a store where he conducted his business.  In 1841 a post office was established as  “Mathews Store, Anne Arundel County”;  the village was then known simply as Mathews.  On July 13, 1874, the name was officially changed to Glenwood, a name chosen by Professor Lycurgus Mathews, son of James and later headmaster of the Glenwood Institute.

The first store and post office stood on the east side of the road;  some tune prior to 1860 it burned and was replaced by a new building across the road, where the Pindell family later conducted a typical country store and post office from 1919 until 1976.  Although James Mathews, first postmaster, weathered the war years, despite the roaming armies of the North and the South traveling toward battles that would take place at Antietam and Gettysburg, he suffered a sizable loss; his annual salary was $116.28.  A document issued by the office of the auditor of the treasury for the Post Office Department, dated 17 August 1864, read in part:

Sir, Your account as postmaster at Mathews'Store, Maryland, has, this day, been credited with the sum of Twenty-seven dollars ($27) allowed you by the postmaster-general, under the  Act of Congress approved April 29, 1864, entitled “An Act for the relief of postmasters who have been robbed by Confederate forces or rebel guerillas.”

Notwithstanding these difficulties, Mathews went on to become a prosperous businessman and provided well for his family. 

Religious by nature, James Mathews was raised by members of the Quaker faith and later “attached himself to the Methodist communion in 1835 or 1836” while the local Methodist church – Union Chapel – was under construction.  He became one of its most generous contributors and on 2 June 1833 was elected to the board of trustees “for the Meeting House now building in this Glenwood neighborhood”,” although he was not yet an active member.  Later he served as treasurer of the board for many years and was among the top contributors. 

He fathered 14 children and lived to see his offspring successful in many fields.  In January 1881 Bloomsburg was badly damaged by fire.  Despite his advanced age, Mathews proceeded immediately to repair the house.  He celebrated the 65th anniversary of his marriage to his Griffith wife and after a long and highly successful life died in 1883.  He is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, of which he was a member of the board for many years.

Of Mathews' 14 sons and daughters two – William, the first child, and Martha, the 11th – died in infancy; of those who survived, all lived exemplary lives.  Several were associated with incidents of particular interest to the people of Howard County.

Leana, the oldest daughter, was born in 1821.  She married first Milton Welsh, son of Philip, of Capt. John, descendant of one of the Welsh brothers who settled “on the four corners” of Florence.  After the death of her first husband and their two children, Lizzie and Kate, Leana married Hon. David McConaughy of Pennsylvania, himself a widower who in his youth had taught at the Banks School House south of Bloomsburg.  The marriage took place in 1856, and McConaughy was then a promising lawyer.  Later he served as district representative in the Pennsylvania State Senate but is best remembered for his organization – immediately after the battle – of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association, which led to the preservation of the site as national monument, eventually coming under the direction of the U.S. government.  The site remains today the most impressive memorial to the turning of the tide in the War Between the States.

Samuel Griffith Mathews, oldest of the Mathews’ sons to survive, was born at Glenwood on 25 June 1822.  Having tried his had as a wholesale merchant in Baltimore for six years, he decided to venture out for himself.  He opened a general store in Lisbon, but after four years he sold it and entered the commission business in Baltimore with his uncle, Fletcher Zollickoffer.  In 1846, he married Catherine Elizabeth Cromwell, daughter of Philemon Cromwell of Frederick. With the outbreak of the War Between the States, his uncle’s business was dissolved.  In 1868 Samuel decided to seek opportunity in the West.  He was in business for a year in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, before travelling on to Nebraska, where he staked out a homestead claim in Seward County and remained for 40 years.  He was among those who drove from Omaha in a covered wagon, then lived in a sod house, its walls 10-12 inches thick.  Although hundreds of miles from home, Samuel followed the course of events in both Maryland and Howard County by subscribing to the Baltimore American and the Elliott City Times.  He enjoyed writing and contributed from time to time to the American.  Later he penned for the Seward Independent a two-part article on the adventures of his great-uncle, Charles Griffith, who was captured by the Barbary pirates during the Revolution and made his escape after 40 years of enslavement in Algiers and Turkey.  The story reprinted in the Ellicott City Times on 1 and 8 June 1912.  Samuel and Catherine Cromwell Mathews lived to celebrate their 60th anniversary in 1906.  The following year Catherine died and was buried at Tamora, Nebraska, and two and half years later Samuel died and was laid to rest beside her.  There were no children from the marriage.

Henry Mathews was born 25 November 1823.  After attending Mr. Hallowell’s School at Sandy Spring, he studied at the Union Theological Seminary, where he entered the Presbyterian ministry.  His first assignment was to Shepardstown, then in Virginia, where he met and married Hannah Van Swearingen, whose father represented the state in the U.S. Senate.  Hannah was a cousin to Harriett Lane Johnstone, who presided at the White House during President James Buchanon’s term of office, and she frequently assisted her cousin in her duties.  Rev. Henry Mathews'chief pastorate was at Elkton, Maryland, where he remained for 12 years.  During the War Between the States, his “delicacy of feeling” and “refinement of thought” combined to make him one of the best-loved pastors in all the border state churches, despite political tensions.  He soon became a prominent and influential member of the New Castle Presbytery.  He was a good business-man as well as a firm but gentle administrator who found the means to build a new church, termed by his flock “one of the handsomest in the presbytery,” before his transfer to Govanstown, Maryland.  During the latter part of his life he served as secretary of the Maryland Tract Society, with headquarters in Baltimore.  In July 1887 he suffered a sunstroke and died.  He was buried in Shepardstown, where he had celebrated both his first assignment and his marriage to Hannah, who preceded him in death.

Mary, second daughter of James and Kitty Mathews, was born at Bloomsburg 8 August 1825.  At age 23 she married Dr. Henry Fletcher Zollickoffer of Baltimore, a relative of considerable means.  She was described as gracious, gentle, sympathetic, and quietly dignified in her dealings with others, and it was written of her that “in her tongue was the law of kindness.”  Although said to be “generous to a fault,” when her husband suffered adverse fortune and lost his wealth she met this crisis with the same dignity for which she had become so well known.  When financial fortunes were once again reversed, she “took up the thread of her old benevolence.”   Henry Fletcher Zollickoffer, one of the city’s most noted philanthropists, died in 1885; he was followed by his wife in 1903.

Of all the Mathews children, Ruth, born in 1826, was the only lifelong resident of Bloomsburg.  A spinster, she cared for her parents until their deaths.  She was educated at a private school then functioning in the village.  A devout member of the Methodist Protestant Church, she dedicated herself to the maintenance and financial support of Union Chapel.  While her life would be found uneventful by some, her manner and conversations were marked by a graciousness such as would be cherished in this day of brash confusion.  She exemplified the “tender grace of a day that is dead and deplored the passing away of customs favorable to the cultivation of the higher virtues and graces of character.”  She lived to celebrate her 75th birthday and upon her deathbed repeated passages from the Bible that she had memorized in her youth.

Lycurgus Griffith Mathews, undoubtedly the most dynamic member of the Mathews family, was born 19 April 1828 at Bloomsburg.  Although he was described as artistic and temperamental, his letters reveal that he knew from early age how he wished to spend his life, yet his career as teacher was at times stormy and frustrating.  As a small child he was tutored at home, after which he spent several years at the school house built and sustained by his father and Dr. Gustavus Warfield.  Although he hoped to attend the Naval Academy at Annapolis, he ultimately studied at Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  Before entering, he taught for a year at Hernwood, a private school in Baltimore County.  Upon graduation from Gettysburg he won an assignment to Lebanon Academy in Lebanon, Ohio, an excellent position for a young man of limited experience.  Yet he remained restless even after advancing to a higher position, that of overseeing the interests of the entire institution, including all the departments “from the ABC Dariens to the highest ranges of Literature.  Still he remained restless, as seen in his comments in a letter to his father:  “I am confident, and I think you will agree with me, that the conscientious Teacher occupying a conspicuous position in society, has that to wear and tear his mind which no other professional man has.”  Though he longed to teach, something stronger than his reasoning kept insisting that he leave the academy.  For a time his ambitions were satisfied when he accepted the chair of professor of Latin and belles-lettres at Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, Virginia.  At another time he taught ancient languages and mathematics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

With the coming of the War Between the States, Lycurgus enlisted and served with a Southern regiment in Virginia.  He was wounded and imprisoned.  When the war ended, he returned to Bloomsburg to recuperate.  The first school he opened in the Glenwood area bore the gargantuan name Phrenakosmian  Hall.  A circular advertising the academy in 1867-68 referred to the instruction as “A Select Seminary for Boys and Girls”; it attracted 48 boys and 25 girls.  A small school house was built for Lycurgus by his older brother William.  Within a short period the academy became a school for boys only, then known as Howard Institute.  Although it grew in enrollment when a primary department was added, Lycurgus was still not satisfied.  He finally realized his ambition when he announced the opening of another academy, soon to become an institute of considerable repute.

Land was bought from his father, and Lycurgus built a sizable Victorian structure, which he called the Glenwood Institute.  Teachers of renown were employed, including Howard County’s highly respected Prof. J. D. Warfield, who had won an enviable reputation training boys for college and for the two military academies at West Point and Annapolis.  For several years a military department functioned, with boys required to wear uniforms and to engage in drill exercises. 

Whether or not Lycurgus Mathews’s ambition was responsible for his early demise at 57 is impossible to know.  What is known is that he was of aristocratic bearing, gifted with a brilliant mind, a strong and compelling manner of teaching, plus a drive over which he seemed to have little control.  But there is little doubt but that he contributed greatly to the history of Glenwood and the welfare of the community.  As a son of that community, he rests now next to his father at Oak Grove Cemetery, within easy sight of the ancestral home.  The institute he founded, although remembered by some, has since disappeared.

Maria, fourth of the Mathews girls, born 5 September 1829, was by far the most lively, delighting in the joys of horseback riding, sleighing, and similar sports. Good of heart but mischievous, she would raid the orchard, filling her apron with apples that she hid under the bed until an appetite was to be satisfied.  Yet when Rev. John Roberts, a young Methodist minister, came to the pulpit in 1850 and asked her to share with him the restricted life of a minister’s wife, she accepted happily and went with him wherever he was called until his death in 1873 in Baltimore.  The mother of four children, she spent her final years with her son James, whom she had seen through dental college.  Upon her death in 1913 she was buried at Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, separated by hundreds of miles from her husband, who also rests at Oak Grove Cemetery, back of Union Chapel where they first met.

Of all the children born to James B. and Kitty Griffith Mathews, none resembled their father more in interests and fields of endeavor than did William, fifth son and second to bear the name.   Born at Glenwood on 27 April 1831, he attended classes at Gettysburg College in 1853; upon completing his education he entered his father’s business as a clerk.  From this humble beginning he rose to the rank of leading merchant in the area.  He succeeded his father as postmaster, an appointment he held from 4 June 1879 to 26 August 1885 and again from 2 August 1886 to 30 December 1889.  In 1884 William also succeeded his father as agent and collector for the Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Montgomery County.  He served as a (lay) judge of the Orphans Court at Ellicott City, as had his father before him.  In 1855 he married Harriet Ann Howard, daughter of Jeremiah and Harriet Howard, at her home near Brookville, Montgomery County.  Their 13 children were all present at the celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary.  William built the beautiful Kingsdene, later the home of the John Cotton family until it burned in the late 1950s.  Judge Mathews died 29 November 1923, two years after the death of his wife.  He, too, was buried in the family plot at Oak Grove Cemetery.  From all accounts, it appears that of all the Mathews children, he was especially loved and admired.  The young loved him; the elderly appreciated his concern for them; and the black people of the neighborhood attended his funeral in large numbers and wept openly at his grave.

James Edwin, sixth son of James Mathews, was also born at Bloomsburg on 5 August 1832.  There being no school near Glenwood at the time – the district school having been torn down and a church built on the site – a teacher was secured for the children of the area, with James Mathews paying the salary and the Warfield’s providing room and board.  Later young James attended Hallowell’s School in Montgomery County; then he went to Gettysburg College.  He taught for a time at Lycurgus’s first school, after which he became principal of Bel Air Academy, Harford County.  Unhappy in his roll as schoolteacher,  James studied medicine, graduating from Maryland Medical School about 1860.  With the out break of war in 1861, he served the Confederacy as surgeon in Capt. William W. Goldsborough’s regiment.  Later, while practicing on the Eastern Shore, he met and married Agnes Boyer.  The ceremony was performed in Old Wye Church.  Returning to Howard County, he opened an office at Daniels, then known as Elysville; later he moved to Glenwood, where he practiced until poor health forced his retirement from medicine.

Shortly thereafter James went into partnership with his father-in-law in a general merchandise business in Centerville, Queen Anne County.  Following the death of Mr. Boyer, Mathews relocated, first to Westminster, then to Reisterstown.  Finally, in 1886 he sold the business and moved to Baltimore, where he died on 22 November 1918.  Gentle, kind, and considerate, he never lost his interest in medicine and frequently was able to afford relief where others had failed.  Although his life was rater restless and somewhat burdened due to poor health, he retained all his interests, including music.  He was remembered for his fine tenor voice and his ability to conduct large classes and neighborhood gatherings, as well as to cultivate particular talents of individual students and his many young protégés.  James Edwin witnessed some of the hysterical anti-German demonstrations in Baltimore during the hostile days of World War I.  Nevertheless he remained a gentleman of the “old school” and as such was cherished by all who knew him.

Alfred Griffith Mathews, seventh son of James B., was born 21 April 1835.  He received his formal education in Alexandria, after which he turned his efforts to farming.  He married Sophia Lavinia Hood, daughter of a prominent Howard County family, and resided within the shadow of his birthplace.  A staunch Republican, Alfred delighted in reminding his friends that he never failed to vote in 67 years, always voting a straight Republican ticket, except when his friend, Hon. Edwin Warfield, ran for governor of Maryland and when his neighbor, William Stinson, was on the county ticket.  For many years Alfred served as justice of the peace in Glenwood.  He was interested in the welfare of Union Chapel but did not become a member until a few days before his death in 1925;  his last message was, Do not delay, but come into the Church while young.

Israel Griffith Mathews, eighth son of James, was born 31 December 1839.  He had his early education at Bloomsburg, then in Alexandria, after which he graduated from Lynchburg College.  Having read law with his uncle, David McConaughy, at Gettysburg, he was admitted to the bar in Maryland when 21.  A religious man even in his youth, he spent a year at Union Theological Seminary.  Toward the end of the War Between the States he met A. Helen Sappington, daughter of Dr. John K. Sappington, and married her in 1864.  From 1867 to 1888 they lived at Blenheim, the Sappington estate and one of the showplaces of Harford County near Havre de Grace.  There, in addition to family portraits by celebrated artists, the walls were covered with handsome paintings executed by Mrs. Mathews, herself an artist of some repute.  Life was good, and luxuries abundant, yet for undisclosed reasons the homestead was sold in 1894 and Israel and his family moved to Steelton, Pennsylvania.  In 1898 they moved to Sparrows Point, Maryland, where in April 1901 Helen Mathews died. Israel remained in his home until 1923, when, at the age of 79, he went to live with a son at Devon, Pennsylvania.  Six years later he died.  Having served for some 60 years as ruling elder in the Presbyterian churches with which he was associated, he was highly regarded, prompting at least one member of the Board of National Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States to pay him high honors both in life and after his death.

Kate Mathews, the sixth girl and last child born to James and Kitty Mathews, was present at the family reunion held in 1926 at Bloomsburg, by then the home of the Stinson family of Glenwood.  When called upon to give a sketch of her life she presented the following:

Kate Mathews was born at Glenwood, June 29, 1841.  She received most of her education in private schools: with Miss Margaret Heckrotte in Lisbon, Howard County;  for 3 years the Rev. Thinas Frary, in Shepherdstown, W. Va., and for two years with Mrs. Eyster in Gettysburg, PA.  In Shepherdstown she took piano lessons which, after the Civil War, she continued with a professor who taught music in Uncle Kirk’s school in Glenwood.  She sang more than she played, but did both many times in Union Chapel.

On May 26th, 1869, she married William Edward Fite, a farmer in Baltimore County, where they lived, at Herwood, for many years.  After Uncle Kirk’s death they purchased Glenwood Institute and opened a boarding school for girls.  Nine years later they sold this property and returned to Baltimore County.  For seventy years she was active in church work.  “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business” has always been her thought.

Her final message read in part:

            I am a resident of Randellstown, Baltimore County, am 85 years old, married W. Edward Fite, an elder in Mt. Paran Presbyterian Church, living with him 52 years and 7 months. Have two daughters, Kity and Mary Fite.

Kate Mathews'days came to an end 13 September 1926, a few months after the reunion.  It was a happy coincidence that so many of her family came to know her before there was no longer any of her generation to help perpetuate the history of the Mathews'family of Glenwood.  Many of those present believed the incident was “a blessed climax to her life.”

There are no longer members of this accomplished family residing at Glenwood, although many homes and buildings once familiar to them survive, most within sight of the highway.  Yet the earthly remains of many with the Mathews name are interred in the peaceful hillside of Oak Grove Cemetery behind Union Chapel, as intimately associated with that remarkable family.

James & Kitty Mathews Family

To learn more about the Mathews family, visit our History of Glenwood page.

1. From Union Chapel History, The 150th Anniversary, published July 9, 1983.
2. Roxbury is about two miles south of Glenwood. Howard County was part of Anne Arundel until 1851.
3. The article from which these words were taken was published in 1983. The Walkers became the fourth family to live in Bloomsburg in October 1985.
4. James B. Mathews was born on November 2, 1791 in Trenton, NJ and died on June 26, 1887 at Glenwood. Catherine B.G. Mathews was born August 28, 1798 and died on February 24, 1884 at Glenwood. They are both buried with their children at Oak Grove Cemetery behind Union Chapel.