William C. Mathews, Rapides Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller

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William C. Mathews, farmer and planter, and business man, is parish 
treasurer of Rapides Parish, and was born and grew up in that community.

He is the great-grandson of one of the distinguished early figures in 
the history of the South, George Mathews, the eminent jurist, who as 
chief justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana performed a great task 
in adapting the civil law and common law of the old French territory of 
an American state.  Judge George Mathews was born in Virginia in 1774, 
a son of George Mathews, who was one of the early governors in the State 
of Georgia.  He was reared in Georgia, and after his admission to the bar, 
moved to Mississippi, and in 1805 President Jefferson appointed him a 
judge of the Supreme Court of that state.  A year later he was transferred 
to the Superior Court of New Orleans and upon the organization of the state government of Louisiana was made chief justice of the Supreme Court.  
He held that office at the time of his death in 1836.

Mr. William C. Mathews was born at Alexandria in 1882, son of Joel E. 
and Ann (Chase) Mathews, his father a native of Dallas County, Alabama, 
and his mother of Pensacola, Florida.  They were married at St. 
Francisville, Louisiana.  Joel E. Mathews was a sugar planter all his 
active career.  In the war between the states, he served as a captain 
in the Confederate army.  He was a democrat, a Mason and a member of 
the Episcopal Church, while his wife was a Catholic.  They had five 
children, four now living.

William C. Mathews, the youngest child, was liberally educated, attending Louisiana State University and a Georgia school of technology.  As a young 
man he had much experience as a banker being cashier of a bank at Cotton 
Port, Louisiana, two years, following which for two years he was connected 
with the lumber manufacturing plant, and then for eight years was cashier 
of a bank at Harrisonburg, Louisiana.  Since them, he has lived in his 
old home community at Rapides Parish, engaged in farming and planting, 
his farm and home being at Lecompte.

Mr. Mathews was elected parish treasurer in 1920, and by reelection still performs the duties of his office at Alexandria.  While living at 
Harrisonburg he served as mayor.  Mr. Mathews is unmarried, is a member 
of the Episcopal Church, is past junior warden of the Masonic Lodge, and 
a member of the Kappa Alpha College fraternity.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 222, by Henry E. Chambers.  
Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and 
New York, 1925.