Matthews, B. F.

MATTHEWS

Posted By: Joyce Hickman (email)
Date: 10/2/2008 at 13:43:51

B. F. Matthews

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.188, Neola Twp.)
B. F. Matthews, farmer, P. O. Neola, was born in Lincoln County, Mo., May 20, 1842. His father was born in Pennsylvania in 1810, and died November 8, 1860; he moved to Kentucky when quite young, thence, in 1825, to Missouri, first settling in St. Louis County, and then in Lincoln County, where our subject was born. His mother, Azila J. (Ligon) Matthews, was born in Tennessee, and died September 5, 1860. The parents had four boys and four girls, three of whom are living. Mr. Matthews attended school in his native county, and his frist work on his own responsibility was as overseer for a slave-owner in Missouri, which position he occupied eight months, and then entered the Fifth Missouri State Militia, in which he remained six months; was then mustered out and returned home. He soon enlisted in the Third Missouri State Cavalry (Federal); he remained in the service three years, being in several engagements, and, when mustered out in 1865, he went to work on a farm in Missouri. Mr. Matthews came to Iowa in August, 1873, and located at Council Bluffs, where he worked in a supply store one winter, in a wholesale grocery a short time, and then went onto a farm in Mills County, Iowa. After an absence of sixteen months in Council Blufs, during which he worked for J. P. Goldern, he returned to Mills County, thence to this county for a year. He next spent two years in Greene County, when, in 1880, he returned to this county, where he now resides. Mr. Matthews was married, January 10, 1867, to Miss Laura Holmes, born in Missouri August 22, 1851, daughter of Lemuel B. and Jane (Keland) Holmes, residents of Missouri, where the father was occupied as a farmer. Mrs. Matthews died May 23, 1869, leaving two children - Leunda B., born January 23, 1868; and James F., born March 19, 1869. While in the army, Mr. Matthews was accompanied by his brother, James C., who has since had an arm blown off while loading a cannon at a re-union of the troops. Mr. Matthews is a Methodist in religion, and a Republican in politics.