Historical and Physical Context: Mathews County

Mathews County is located at the eastern tip of the Middle Peninsula of Virginia. It is bounded on the north by the Piankitank River and the Chesapeake Bay, on the east by the Chesapeake Bay, and on the south by Mobjack Bay. Mathews is a rural county of 87 square miles, with a population of approximately 9,500, and is the smallest rural county in the state.1

The county seat and center of commerce in Mathews County is the village known as Mathews, or Mathews Court House. It is located in the center of the county at the intersection of Rt. 14 and Rt. 198, at the head of Put-In Creek. This downtown commercial area covers only a few blocks, with most buildings located on Main Street (Rt. 14) and a few on the intersecting Church Street. At the center of the downtown area is the Courthouse Green, which houses several county buildings including the historic courthouse. A majority of the buildings downtown are commercial or governmental, although some historic residences remain on the fringes of the village.

Mathews County was originally known as Kingston Parish, and was the eastern part of Gloucester County. Kingston Parish was prosperous, and in 1704 116 landowners were recorded with total landholdings of 46,537 acres.2 In 1790, Kingston Parish citizens petitioned the General Assembly to separate them from Gloucester, arguing that the size of the county made it difficult for residents of the lower section to travel the forty miles to Gloucester Court House. Speaker of the House of Delegates General Thomas Mathews supported the petition, and the county was divided on May 1, 1791. In gratitude for General Mathews' interest in their cause, the citizens named their new county Mathews.3

In 1792, construction began on the first of the brick county buildings located on the courthouse green at the head of Put-In Creek. By the mid-nineteenth century, several more county buildings had been erected on the green, including two jails and a clerk's office. The area surrounding the courthouse became the central marketplace of the county, and was originally known as Westville. In A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia and the District of Columbia, published in 1835, Joseph Martin states that there were "about 30 houses, 4 mercantile stores, 1 tanyard, 3 boot and shoe factories, 1 tailor, 2 blacksmiths, 1 saddler, 1 carriage maker, and 1 tavern…population 150, including 3 regular physicians."4 Westville gradually evolved into the Mathews commercial district that exists today.

The economy of Mathews County has always been closely tied to the sea, with commercial fishing and shipbuilding historically being two of its largest industries. Shipbuilding was the main trade in the county from as early as the American Revolution, with timber being harvested from across the county. One-third of the ships constructed in Virginia between 1790 and 1820 were built in Mathews; by the mid-nineteenth century, the shipbuilding industry in the county had declined as sea vessel industry sprang up in the Norfolk and Baltimore areas. During the 1800s and first half of the 1900s, Mathews was a steamboat port for boats carrying both passengers and cargo. Fishing industries have also long been an important trade, with crabbing, oystering, and fishing being the main source of income for many Mathews families. The seafood industry peaked around 1920 and then declined due to a lessened market and general resource depletion in the Bay.5 This lack of sustaining industry resulted in little population growth within the county since the mid-nineteenth century and slow commercial growth in the downtown commercial district, which has been beneficial in preserving the rural historic character of the village.