Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects The Mathews Homicide

At Fairfield, on Thursday morning, May 23, 1867, was enacted a tragedy, the bloody details of which are as shocking and blood-curdling as those of any murder which has ever blackened the criminal records of the State of Iowa. On the morning in question, Joseph Mathews, a laborer, between the hours of 7 and 8 o'clock, when everyone but himself and wife, Mrs. Sarah A. Mathews, had quitted the premises, when the latter had no thought of the murderous intent in the mind of her husband, and while she stood with her back turned toward him, siezed an ax and deliberately hewed her head to pieces. This terrible crime was enacted on a bright, beautiful morning of the pleasantest month of the year, when all the better and holier instincts of man and bird and beast seem to reign with the fullest sway.

Early after the tragedy, news of which had been conveyed abroad by James Frank Mathews, a twelve-year-old son of the victim and her unnatural husband, who had returned home in time to witness a partion of the tragedy, an anxious crowd surrounded the dwelling. Mathews, when arrested and conveyed to jail, offered no resistance, remaining as immovable and impassive as a beast. Various and conflicting feelings pervaded the multitude; some were filled with the deepest indignation at the enormity of the crime, and clamored loudly for speedy and certain vengeance; some, taking into consideration certain well-known peculiarities in the character of Mathews, gave better counsels. These prevailed, and the matter was left to its proper course.

C. E. Noble, Coroner, summoned J. M. Shaffer, J. L. Myers and John R. Shaffer as a jury of inquest, and proceeded to view the remains of the murdered wife and mother. The following facts were elicited:

The body of Mrs. Mathews, when first discovered by the citizens, was lying on the right side in a small room on the north side of the house, nearly opposite the residence of Mr. G. D. Temple. The face was to the floor, and large pools of blood were under the head and shoulders. To the north of where the murdered woman lay, and near the window, stood two barrels, and on the other side of the dead body, along the south side of the room, was ranged a row of boxes. From the nature of the contents of some of these, it may be supposed the wife was busy about her household cares, and that she had entered the fatal chamber for some article used in her culinary duties. An ax, the head and blade of which were found dripping with the life-blood of the faithful woman, who scarcely an hour before was so full of life and vigor, lay near the bleeding body. The hair was disheveled and clotted with blood, and the wounds and marks of violence were quite distinct, and the jagged edges indicated that the murder had been effected with a blunt instrument. There were fully nine wounds -- any one of which might have caused the death of the woman -- "poor dumb mouths," which bore their ghastly testimony to the ferocious and savage instincts of the brutal and unreasoning husband. The left sleeve of the dress was torn from the shoulder, and a purple bruise on the back of the right hand, indicating that a blow had been warded off, showed the desperate struggle of the wife and mother in the vain endeavor to preserve her life.

Mrs. Mathews was buried the day following the murder, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, a vast crowd assembling at the Methodist Church to attend the obsequies, showing the universal respect in which she was held by all who knew her. Never had the slightest breath assailed her good name. All things tended to shroud the murder in the darkest mystery; and in vain was the search for a motive that would lead to the commission of so horrible a crime.

She had been married about sixteen years, having come to Iowa with Mathews and her parents, Joseph and Sarah Hudgell, in 1856. At the time of her marriage, she was about nineteen years of age, being more than twenty years younger than her husband. Their married life did not vary from that common to persons in their station of life. The struggles "against the wolf" were not an exception; he with his ax and shovel working industriously among the people, and she with prudence, care, economy and neatness, managed the affairs of the household. They accompanied each other and their children to church, and to all public places of entertainment, where Christian men and women might be found, and enjoyed in company the social re-unions so common in village and country life, seemingly a happy pair.

At the time of the homicide, Joseph B. Mathews, the murderer, was nearly fifty-six years of age, having been born October 11, 1811, in the State of New Jersey, from whence he had moved to Ohio, and from there to Iowa with his wife in 1856. He was a remarkably taciturn, reserved and quiet man, rarely commencing a conversation, and, when addressed, generally replying in monosyllables, and never entering with spirit into the discussions common among the people. His education was limited: he could read and write, but did little of either, finding no company in books and papers, and passing his hours, unoccupied by labor, in communings with his own spirit, or in listless inattention to the matters surrounding him. For some years, he had been a member of the Methodist Church, regular in his attendance, and neglecting none of his religious duties in the church or the family. No one suspected that he was capable of so horrible a crime; no one dreamed that murder was in his heart; no one imagined that, in an evil hour, he would inbrue his hands in the blood of his affectionate and loving wife. With all this showing, then, it was not wonderful that the quiet community of Fairfield should be startled upon the announcement of the murder.

On the 25th day of May, Mathews was taken from jail and brought before 'Squire Evans for a preliminary examination. The prisoner pleaded "Not guilty," and was remanded to jail to be tried at the ensuing term of the District Court. When the case was called for trial at the September (1867) term of Court, a motion was made to postpone it until the January term, which motion was granted. The case came on for trial at the January (1878) term of Court. Messrs. Slagle and Atcheson, attorneys for the defendant, applied for a change of venue, and the case was taken to Washington County. Court commenced in Washington on the 27th day of April, and, all parties being in readiness, the trial proceeded. The evidence elicited in the case agreed with the events above recorded; with the additions of depositions taken of some of the prisoner's relatives in Ohio, who testified to the fact that insanity was hereditary in the family; that his mother became insane some time previous to his birth, and that his sisters and other members of the Mathews family were victims of that malady. There were also certain other marked peculiarities in the character of the prisoner that led to the belief that he was of unsound mind and subject to melancholia.

The trial was before Judge E. S. Sampson, and his charge to the jury was regarded as a masterly summing-up of the deductions to be drawn from the evidence. The following sentiment taken from Judge Sampson's charge to the jury on this occasion, is well worthy the consideration of all readers:

The doctrine, which some doctors suggest, that every person who commits some enormous offense is more or less insane or of unsound mind, is one to which I cannot subscribe. To my mind it is a dangerous doctrine to the welfare of society, and is calculated to mislead the mind when drawing the distinction between the acts arising from a wicked heart, and such as have their origin in a diseased mind. When we find the highwayman striking his stilletto to the heart of the benighted traveler, securing his gold, and reveling on his ill-gotten treasure; or, when we see the husband stealthily, through pretense of affection and love, slipping to the lips of his lawful wife the cup of poison in order that he may take to his arms the alluring paramour, we see at once, and justly, too, it is not the unsound brain that commits the crime, but the rotten and diseased heart.

On Monday, the 4th of May, 1868, the case was given to the jury, who, at half-past 1 o'clock in the afternoon, returned the following verdict:

We, the jury, find the defendant, Joseph R. Mathews, guilty of murder in the second degree.

On the Friday following, the Judge sentenced the prisoner to imprisonment for life. He was taken to the Penitentiary at Fort Madison, by the Sheriff of Jefferson County, and given into the custody of the Warden of that institution, to remain for the term of his natural life. Mathews conducted himself there as he had done ever since the murder. He could not be made to understand that he must work, and the shower-bath was twice brought into requisition before his stubbornness could be overcome. However, he eventually fell into the ways of the institution, and became a good workman among the convicts.