John and Nancy McAllester Matthews were among the earliest settlers at Georgetown near the Meigs County line. During the Civil War, the family went with the Union. Two of their plantation homes still survive.

The family is said to trace back to Alexander Matthews, who was born in England about 1725 and made his way to Guilford County, N.C. His children are given as James, John, Alexander Jr., Jeremiah and George. The Matthews family lived near Hugh Laughlin, who erected a mill in 1753. Laughlin, who was a Quaker, died in 1765. James Matthews married one of his daughters, Susannah. James attended the Quaker meetings, though he was disciplined for horseracing when he was 17. When he was 19, he and his brother, John, were Regulators in Anson and Orange counties. During the Revolution when
there was a battle near the Laughlin mill, Susannah helped care for the wounded and bury the dead. James Matthews marched away on several enlistments with the Patriot army.

James and Susannah Matthews, along with three other Laughlin girls and their husbands, made their way in 1791 to the future Blount County in the Tennessee frontier. Matthews
eventually acquired land that stretched for six miles at Cloyds Creek. Most of this property was later inundated by Fort Loudoun Lake. James Matthews died in 1802. On May 28, 1938, Ralph Waldo Lloyd,
president of Maryville College, gave an address as a marker was placed at the Friendsville Cemetery in memory of this Revolutionary soldier. Susannah Laughlin Matthews lived until 1840.

Children of James and Susannah were Jonathan who married Mary Allan, Elizabeth who died when she was three, Mary who married William Griffitts, George, David who married Margaret Costner, Elizabeth who married Joseph Jones, Joanna who married Samuel Bond, Aaron who married Mary Sands, and Harlan who married Nancy McCaslin.

Another son was the John who made his way to Georgetown when he acquired a 160-acre land grant at $2 per acre in 1839. He was born June 26, 1786, when the family was still in North Carolina. After his marriage in Blount County, he and Nancy moved to McMinn County and were there 20 years and in Bradley County three years. John Matthews was a talented mechanic and also had a farm. He was a Democrat and was a member of the Primitive Baptist Church for 60 years. Nancy McAllester Matthews died in 1860 and John Matthews died in 1869.

Their eldest daughter, Joanna, married Hugh B. Lusk and they moved west. Mary married Francis Boyd and Rebecca married a Dunn. Susan married Alfred King, a Baptist minister whose family the Matthews had known in Guilford County.

The eldest son was given the family name of Harlan. He married Matilda Dunn, then Susan Humphrey and then Matilda Moore. Harlan died several years after the Civil War. His eldest daughter, Amy Lou, married Dr. Sterling Tried Smith. The other children included Nancy who married Kim Johnson, Pleasant, William, Virginia, James, Sarah, John, Alfred, Robert, M.E. and Lawrence.

Another son of John and Nancy was George W. Matthews, who was born in 1821. He married Mary Watkins in Meigs County. Their oldest daughter, Harriet Jane, married Dr. Manuel Jackson Lewis. Tennessee married Thomas Purcell and moved to Arkansas, while Susan married M.E. Foster. The sons were John T. and James Harlan.

James A. Matthews, another son of John and Nancy, was a minister who established several Baptist churches and a trustee of Long Savannah Academy. He married Mary Blair. Their children included George A., Jane, William, Nancy Luvenia, Clarissa, Catherine and the twins Mary and Martha. Nancy L. married John Monger in 1866.

The youngest son of John and Nancy was Pleasant L. Matthews, who was born near Athens in 1825. A graduate of William and Mary College, he learned the tanning business as a young man and operated his own tannery for nine years. He later farmed, acquiring 1,080 acres in James and Bradley counties. In 1856, he married Margaret Williamson, who was from Mecklenburg County, N.C., and the daughter of William and Elmina Wentz Williamson. Their daughter, Nancy E. Matthews, married Edward Edwards.

George W. Matthews at age 42 joined the Union's Fifth Infantry. In January of 1863, he switched to Co. F. of the Fourth Cavalry. He was promoted to lieutenant and assigned as a recruiting officer in Kentucky and elsewhere. George W. Matthews on April 5, 1863, submitted his resignation, citing the fact of “having a large family in East Tennessee and my sons having joined the U.S. Army, my family is left unprotected and my presence at home is greatly needed.” His son, John T. Matthews, had joined Co. F of the Fourth Cavalry on June 1, 1863, at Nashville, though he was just 17. He was later hospitalized at Nashville and was in another hospital at New Orleans near the war's end. George A.
Matthews, son of James Matthews, was also in Co. F after enlisting at Murfreesboro on Dec. 10, 1863, when he was 23. He was promoted to quartermaster sergeant in May of 1864. He was missing in action at the Chattahoochie River near Atlanta, but he later rejoined his unit and gained another promotion to sergeant major in January of 1865. George A. Matthews was later a doctor.

Pleasant Matthews was a delegate to the Peace Conference in Knoxville in May 1861 that sought to avert the war. He and his brother, Harlan, were among those imprisoned in Alabama on suspicion of burning Rebel bridges.

While her brothers and nephews were helping the Union, Susan Matthews King saw four of her sons and three of her sons-in-law go into the Confederate army.

George Matthews operated a fine farm on the road to Meigs County (Highway 58), and his wife was a talented quilter and homemaker. One of the family heirlooms that was made with her daughter, Harriet, was a “Tree of Life” quilt. George Matthews gave the land for the New Union Baptist Church that was organized by his brother, James. George Matthews died in 1901.

Pleasant Matthews was one of the commissioners who organized James County, and he was a justice of the peace 27 years. In 1852, he completed a handsome frame house that was fronted by a semi-circular driveway lined with boxwoods. The family cemetery was nearby. John and Nancy and several of their children are buried there. Pleasant Matthews died in 1898. His widow lived until 1919.

The Shelley family inherited the Pleasant Matthews homeplace. The home on Ooltewah-Georgetown Road was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, though it is in ruins. Paul Bacon lived over 40 years in the George Matthews home, which features logs of heart pine.

One descendant of this family is Harlan Mathews, who was state treasurer for Tennessee and then a United States Senator.