Henry Mason Mathews, eldest son of Mason and Eliza (Reynolds) Mathews, was born March 29, 1834, at Frankford, and died at Lewisburg April 28, 1884. He married Lucy Clayton Fry, daughter of Judge Joseph and Elizabeth (McElhenney) Fry.

 

Mathews was educated at the University of Virginia, taking the degrees of B.A. and M.A., and later read law at Judge Brockenbrough’s celebrated Law School in Lexington, Virginia.  He was teaching modern languages in Allegheny College, Blue Sulphur Springs, when he resigned to serve in the Confederate Army, in which he was promoted to be a Major of Artillery.

 

Shortly after the war he was elected to the State Senate from the Greenbrier District by practically a unanimous vote, but did not take his seat owing to his inability to take the test oath.

 

With James Withrow, Esq., the delegate from Greenbrier, Mathews was allowed to address the Legislature at Wheeling.  He was a representative at the Constitutional Convention of 1872.  He was Attorney General 1872-1876.   Henry Mason Mathews was elected Governor of West Virginia in 1876 and served until March 4, 1881.

 

( information from Historical Booklet, Greenbrier County, 1938 )