Editing James N. Mathews (section)

=== To San Bernardino, California For a Season ===

In 1851, Mathews was among the group of southern slaveholders who accompanied Amasa M. Lyman to San Bernardino to establish a Mormon colony there. It is not clear when Mathews returned to Utah. However, like the other southerners in California, they left without their slaves. California was a free state and their slaves were deemed freed. They were not permitted to remove them. (Some of these freed slaves eventually became pillars of the African Methodist Episcopalian (A.M.E.) Church in Los Angeles.)