James N. Mathews

James Mathews, his personal and family background, and his involvement in the Mountain Meadows Massacre
James N. Mathews (1827-1871)
Biographical Sketch

James Nicholas Mathews was a native of rural Alabama with American forebears in Kentucky and Alabama. He moved from Alabama to Mississippi, then on to western Illinois. From there he followed the Mormons to frontier Utah. He was an American frontiersman and pioneer of southern Utah.
Mathews was born in Pickens County in west-central Alabama. Those of his America forebears who can be identified were from Kentucky and Alabama. In the early 1830s they moved across the border to De Kalb, Kemper County in east-central Mississippi, then to Hinds County in central Mississippi.
They heard the Mormon message, moved to Illinois and joined the Mormon exodus into the west.
In 1857, Mathews moved to Washington, Washington County in southern Utah. Also that year thirty-year-old Mathews married fifteen-year-old Clara Elizabeth Slade (1841-1891), of Harris County, Texas, the daughter of William Rufus Slade and Julianne H. Slade. This was a Reformation-era marriage.
In September 1857, Mathews, 30, was a 2nd Lieutenant of the 2nd platoon in Washington, in Harrison Pearce’s Company I, part of John D. Lee’s 4th Battalion. He was probably recruited on Sunday, September 6 and his party moved north on Monday the 7th and met Lee that evening some miles south of Mountain Meadows. The next day they moved up to the Meadows and encamped there in the "southern" encampment. Mathews specific role during the massacre on Friday the 11th is not known. Mathews was not named in the 1859 arrest warrant.
In the early 1860s Mathews and family moved to Pine Valley in northern Washington County where they remained except for a brief stay in Panaca in eastern Nevada in the mid-1860s. Unrest resulting from the Black Hawk War caused that settlement to be abandoned and the Mathews returned to Pine Valley were Mathews died and was buried in 1871, survived by his wife and five children.
Additional information on James N. Mathews:
James Nichols Mathews, (son of Knowel and Martha Ann Mathews of the southern states). Born July 4, 1829 [sic, 1823 per Black]. Came to Utah in 1849 by mule team. Married Clara Slade at Washington, Utah (daughter of William Slade and Julian Higginbottam), who came to Utah 1848 from Texas (with Blair or Jolley). Born Dec. 25, 1842, and died Aug. 1891, Vernal, Utah. They had three boys and two girls. Family home Pine Valley, Utah. Missionary to southern Utah to make peace with the Indians and assisted in development of "Dixie." Elder and teacher. Farmer. Died June 27, 1871. (Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 1026.) 
Mathews was an original founder of Washington, Washington Co., 1857. (History of Washington County, 29, 50 fn 11.)
James Matthews settled in Meadow Valley and laid out the town of Panaca, c. 1864. (Hulse, "The Afterlife of St. Mary’s County," Utah Historical Quarterly, 55/3 (Summer 1987), 241-42.)
A William Mathews, a southerner, brought his Negro slave Uncle Phil with him to Utah. (Beller, "Negro Slaves in Utah," UHQ, 2/4 (October 1929), 124.)
On William Mathews, consider: "A few of the slave-owners went with Amasa M. Lyman to San Bernardino, California, in 1851, to establish an L. D. S. colony; among these were Charles C. Rich, William Mathews, Daniel M. Thomas, William Crosby and William Smith. Their slaves were liberated in California as that state was then free soil. Mr. Lyman, Jr., relates that when William Smith realized that his slaves would become free in California he tried to take them to Texas, but his slaves desiring freedom, refused to go with him. When the Buchanan war broke out in 1857, the rancho of San Bernardino was sold and the Saints returned to Utah. According to the U. S. census of 1850, Utah was the only western state or territory having slaves." (Beller, supra, 126.)
References: Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, 1026; History of Washington County, 29, 50 fn 11; Hulse, "The Afterlife of St. Mary’s County," Utah Historical Quarterly, 55/3 (Summer 1987), 241-42; Beller, "Negro Slaves in Utah," UHQ, 2/4 (October 1929), 124, 126; Lee, Mormonism Unveiled; Lee Trial transcripts; FamilySearch.org.
Further information and confirmation needed.
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