Biographies
For
Muscatine County Iowa
1889



Source: Portrait and Biographical Album, Muscatine County, Iowa, 1889, page 569

JOHN A. MATHEWSON, City Engineer and a well-known resident of Muscatine, is one of the early settlers of this county. He was born in Providence R. I., Jan. 8, 1829, and is the son of Isac and Eliza ( Arnold ) Mathewson. His first school days were spent in Smithville, his native State, under the instruction of Dr. Quinby. Later he attended several other schools, but finally returned to the first, and was graduated two years thereafter. At the age of eighteen he entered what is now known as the Thayer School, at Boston, where he studied one year.

In 1849, at the age of twenty years, young Mathewson engaged as a civil engineer with the Vermont Central Railroad Company, and remained with them one year. He then went to Ohio, and was employed in the same capacity with the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad Company about four years. Later we find him in Iowa County, this State, where he built a sawmill, which he operated about one year, then sold out, and coming to Muscatine, taught school in the Third Ward College from 1860 to 1864. In 1865 he was appointed City Engineer, and two years later Chief Engineer of the M. F. & A. R. R. R. Co.

In 1869 Mr. Mathewson ran on the Keithburg branch of the Rock Island & St. Louis Railroad, and later was the employe of the Milwaukee & St. Paul from Dubuque north, and followed railroading until 1873. That year he made a survey from Muscatine to Iowa Falls, and after some time occupied as a surveyor, engaged, in the spring of 1880 to superintend the construction of the Wabash bridge. Later he returned to surveying for the Iowa Central Railroad Company and in 1882 superintended the carrying of the chain from Anamosa to Dodge Centre, Minn. In February, 1883, he started on a survey from New Boston, Ill., to Chillicothe, Mo., and thence back to New Boston, and wound up this business by running two lines each 200 miles in length, for the Chicage, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company, after which he was appointed City Engineer of Muscatine, which position he still holds.

Mr. Mathewson was married, Nov. 10, 1857, to Mary B. Knight, in Taunton, Mass., and the same day started for the West. Mrs. Mathewson was born, July 6, 1832, in Connecticut, and was the third of eight children, the offspring of Benjamin and Amy ( Ballow ) Knight, four of whom are now living, and of whom she is the eldest. Her brother Noah is a resident of Albany County, Wyo. Ter.; he married Malvina Barber, of Coventry, R. I.; Benjamin was graduated from Harvard College, married Lida Kelley, of Johnston, R. I., and is now a practicing physician at San Diego, Cal. Lucinda married Mr. James Plant, a native of England, and now Chief Engineer of the Central Pacific car-works ; they reside in Sacremento, Cal. Lucretia is the widow of Henry Thurber, and a resident of Santa Cruz, Cal.; Thomas W. D., was named in honor of Thomas Daris, of the Daris Rebellion of 1843. A paternal uncle of Mrs. Mathewson, Mr. Job Ballow, resides on a farm which has been owned by the family 190 years, and upon which are buried five grandfathers of Mrs. Mathewson.

Mr. and Mrs. Mathewson became the parents of three children, one of whom, Benjamin K., born Jan 19, 1867, died Nov. 16, 1868. Isaac, the eldest living, was born Aug. 13, 1860, and is engaged as a civil engineer on the Union Pacific Railroad , in Colorado ; Thomas K., was born March 10, 1870, and remains at home with his parents. Mr. Mathewson is a member of the A. O. U. W., and, with his estimable wife, belongs to the First Metyhodist Episcopal Church of Muscatine.


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