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File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project
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Source: The Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Fulton County
Munsell Publishing Co., Chicago, 1908

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The Biography of H. T. MATHEWS 

Transcribed exactly according to the original complete text by Alice Stipak. 

[Surnames: BODY, DENNIS, JEWELL, MATHEWS, ORENDORFF, PARLIN] 

[Page 974] 

    
MATHEWS, H. T.--When H. T. Mathews was fourteen years old opportunity knocked at his door in the guise of a minor position with the Parlin & Orendorff Plow Works, at Canton. Of course he had gone out to seek a chance of livelihood, for his people were poor and the necessity arose for the conversion of his young strength into the wherewithal of existence. Sufficient that he was industrious and faithful, and that he recognized the advantage of association with a concern which offered many avenues of advancement to the ambitious and deserving. Nine years later, in 1881, he was appointed foreman of the works, a position which he since has maintained with the same conscientious and painstaking methods that secured his promotion. He thus has been in the employ of the same concern for thirty-four years, and it is felt that his rise is a tribute to those fundamental qualities of mind and heart which rarely fail in securing the advancement of the possessor. 
    
A native of Washington County, Md., Mr. Mathews was born in 1858 and is of Scotch-English ancestry. His father, C. J. Mathews, was born in Virginia in 1832 and died in 1897, and his mother was born in Cornwall, England, in 1839, her death occurring in 1887. Before her marriage she was Sophia Body. The family came to Illinois during the Civil War and, after a year spent in Decatur, located in Canton, where the father worked as a shoemaker for many years, but during the last years of his life was in the employ of his son in the Parlin & Orendorff Plow Works. H. T., who was about five years old when he arrived in Canton, attended the public schools for a short time only, but this early deficiency seems not to have interfered with his subsequent and continuous effort to acquire a practical education. In fact at the present time Mr. Mathews is rated as one of the well informed citizens of the community, taking an intelligent interest in politics and identifying himself closely with the local undertakings of the Republican party. That he is an important factor in its deliberations has been attested on many occasions, but he is particularly appreciated in his own, or the Fifth Ward, of which he has been an Alderman since 1895. For the past six years he has been a member of the Republican Township Committee. 
    
In 1881, the year that he became foreman of the Plow Works, Mr. Mathews married Margaret Dennis, who died in 1896. His present wife formerly was Josephine Jewell, sister of State's Attorney Jewell, of Lewistown, Ill. Mr. Mathews has a social side which relishes a good story or timely joke, and he takes great pleasure in exchanging courtesies with his friends. For several years he has held membership in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America. He is popular with his subordinates in the works, a man of great kindliness and consideration, of true dignity and unquestioned integrity.