Matthews is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

on the southeastern edge of Colorado County, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. The community is located south of

Eagle Lake Eagle Lake may refer to: Cities, towns, townships etc. Canada * Eagle Lake, Haliburton County, Ontario * Eagle Lake, Parry Sound District, Ontario * Eagle Lake 27, Ontario (Indian reserve) * Eagle Lake, Kenora District, Ontario United States * ...

near the junction of FM 102 and FM 950. The settlement was named for a man who owned an area plantation before the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. By 2013, the school, post office, businesses and railroad line that once served Matthews were gone, but the number of silos in the neighborhood indicated that the land was still being intensively farmed.

Geography

According to the

Geographic Names Information System The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features throughout the United States and its territories, Antarctica, and the associated states of ...

(GNIS), Matthews is located at both and . The first location is just south of the intersection of FM 102 and Strickland Lane. The second location is where Matthews Store Road crosses the former railroad right-of-way. A third location is given by the

Texas State Historical Association The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is a non-profit educational organization, dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, on March 2, 1897. , TSHA moved their offices from Austin to the University of N ...

, which describes the community as being situated at the junction of FM 102 and FM 950. The third location is northwest of the first GNIS site and south of the second GNIS location. Matthews Store Road is an east–west connector of FM 102 and the parallel FM 3013. Matthews is south of Eagle Lake and northwest of

Wharton Wharton may refer to: Academic institutions * Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania * Wharton County Junior College * Paul R. Wharton High School * Wharton Center for Performing Arts, at Michigan State University Places * Wharton, Ch ...

on FM 102. The community is northeast of

Garwood Garwood can refer to: People * Doug Garwood, American golfer * Edmund Johnston Garwood, British geologist * Julie Garwood, author * Kelton Garwood, American actor * Richard Garwood, Air Marshall in the Royal Air Force * Robert R. Garwood, prison ...

on FM 950.

History

In 1827, John Matthews purchased acreage from James Nelson, one of the

Old Three Hundred The "Old Three Hundred" were 297 grantees who purchased 307 parcels of land from Stephen Fuller Austin in Mexican Texas. Each grantee was head of a household, or, in some cases, a partnership of married men. Austin was an American approved in 18 ...

who were granted land in

Stephen F. Austin Stephen Fuller Austin (November 3, 1793 – December 27, 1836) was an American-born empresario. Known as the "Father of Texas" and the founder of Anglo Texas,Hatch (1999), p. 43. he led the second and, ultimately, the successful colonization ...

's colony. Matthews started a successful plantation that owned 140 slaves by 1860. The community that formed in the area served Matthews' and other nearby plantations. After the end of the Civil War, many of the freed slaves stayed in the area. Freed slaves who were descendants of James Montgomery's plantation slaves from Matthews stayed in and around the area and have gone on to great heights. Rev. Daniel Whitley, one of Montgomery's slaves who was emancipated after the American Civil War, went on to be a minister in both Columbus and in Eagle Lake. His grandson, John Whitley, who was raised in the house of Whitley's daughter Cordelia and her husband after both his father and mother had died, became a noted art restorer and intimate of J. Frank Dobie who at one time restored all of the paintings hanging in the Texas Capitol. Cordelia's husband, Daniel Whitley's son-in-law, Cicero Howard, was the second black man elected to public office in Colorado County at the county level, and the first black Colorado County Commissioner. The Matthews Community settlement boasted a

blacksmith shop A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

, a

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); a ...

and a store in 1880. The community acquired a post office in 1895 with Mary McRee serving as postmaster. In 1898 the Cane Belt Railroad was chartered. By June 1899, the railroad stretched from Eagle Lake to Wharton. The Cane Belt was bought by the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...

in 1904. In 1900, Matthews had four commercial establishments, a school and 100 residents. The post office closed in 1905 and mail began to be delivered from Eagle Lake. The population remained steady until the 1960s when the hand-picked cotton harvests were replaced by mechanized rice and corn production. By the mid-1980s there was only one local business. The railroad through the area was abandoned in 1992 and the tracks removed. The former railroad right-of-way running parallel with FM 102 near Matthews can be easily seen in satellite views. File:Matthews TX Silos.JPG, Silos along FM 950 as it approaches FM 102 File:Matthews TX Greater Union Church.JPG, Greater Union Baptist Church at FM 102 and Strickland Lane File:Matthews TX FM 950 Sign.JPG, Junction of FM 102 and FM 950 at Matthews

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Texas Unincorporated communities in Colorado County, Texas