Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/298

"Retrospections of America," with Laurence Hut- ton (1887) ; " American Literature " (1896) ; " Out- lines in Local Color " (1897) ; and " A Confident To-morrow " (1898). In 1892 lie was appointed professor of literature in Columbia university. MATTHEWS, John, clergyman, b. in Guilford county, N. C, 19 Jan., 1772; d. in New Albany, Ind., i9 May, 1848. He was licensed to preach in 1801, and the next winter was sent as a missionary of the Presbyterian church to Natchez, Miss. He was successively pastor of churches in Martins- burg, Shepherdstown, Charleston, and Harper's Ferry, Va., from 1805 till 18ol, when he became president of the Presbyterian theological seminary at Hanover, Ind. He continued in this office sev- enteen years, and was for a part of that time vice- president of Hanover college. Washington college, Pa., gave him the degree of D. D. in 1823. Be- sides publishing many sermons. Dr. Matthews was the author of •' Divine Purpose displayed in the Works of Providence and Grace," in a series of letters, and " Influence of the Bible."

MATTHEWS, Stanley. jurist, b. in Cincinnati, Ohio, 21 July, 1824; d. in Washington, D. C, 22 March, 1889. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar, settling in Maury county. Tenn. He shortly afterward returned to Cin- cinnati, early en- gaged in anti-sla- very movements, and in 1846-9 was an assistant editor of the "Cincinnati Herald," the first daily anti-slavery newspaper in that city. He became judge of the court of common pleas of Hanover county in 1851, was state senator in 1855, and in 1858-61 was the U. S. attorney for the southern district of Ohio.

In March, of the

last-named year, he was commissioned lieutenant- colonel of the 23d Ohio regiment, and served in West Virginia, participating in the battles of Rich Mountain and Carnifex Ferry. In October, 1861, he became colonel of the 57th Ohio regiment, and in that capacity commanded a brigade in the Army of the Cumberland, and was engaged at Dobb's Ferry. Murfreesborough, Chiekamauga. and Look- out Mountain. He resigned from the army in 1863, to become judge of the superior court of Cincinnati, and was a presidential elector on the Lincoln and Johnson ticket in 1864, and on the Grant and Colfax ticket in 1868. In 1864 he was a delegate from the presbytery of Cincinnati to the General assembly of the Presbyterian church in Newark, N. J.,and as one of the committee on bills and overtures reported the resolutions that were adopted by the assembly on the subject of slavery. He was defeated as Republican candidate for con- gress in 1876, and in the next year was one of the counsel before the electoral commission, opening the argument in behalf of the Republican electors in the Florida ease, and making the principal argu- ment in the Oregon case. In March he was elected U. S. senator in place of John Sherman, who had resigned. In 1881 he was appointed associate jus- tice of the U. S. supreme court.

MATTHIAS, religious impostor, b. in Washing- ton county. N. Y., in 1790; d. in Arkansas after 1840. He was a country merchant named Robert Matthews, but, after failing in business in 1816, re- moved to New York, and in 1827 to Albany. He professed conversion under the evangelists Edward N. Kirk and Charles G. Finney, subsequently en- gaged in the temperance cause, and, claiming to have received a revelation, took to street-preaching. Failing to convert Albany, he prophesied its de- struction, and fled to New York, where he involved several respectable families in his delusions, and was tried and acquitted of poisoning Elijah Pier- son, a wealthy disciple, in whose family he lived. His impostures having been exposed, he disap- peared. Matthias claimed divine attributes, denied the sanctity of marriage, forbade the use of meat, and dressed in what he called a prophet's robe, a long, white garment. His sect dispersed after his exposure. See " Matthias and his Impostures," by William L. Stone (New York, 1835), and " Fanati- cism Illustrated in the Case of Matthias," a reply to the foregoing, by G. Vale (1835).

MATTISON, Hiram, clergyman, b. in Norway, N. Y., 11 Feb.. 1811; d. in Jersey City, N. J., 24 Nov., 1868. He entered the Methodist ministry in 1835, was appointed agent of the American Bible society for the state of New Jersey in 1841, and, resuming pastoral work the next year, was suc- cessively stationed in Watertown and Rome, N. Y. From 1846 till 1860 he was largely em- ployed in the preparation of works on astronomy and in lecturing. In 1856-7 he was pastor of churches in Adams and Syracuse, N. Y., and took an active part in anti-slavery movements. By cor- respondence with the Methodists of Great Britain in 1859, he obtained the names of about 85,000 pe- titioners to the general conference of 1860, praying that body to extirpate slavery from the Methodist Episcopal church, and a like paper from 45,000 pe- titioners in central New York was largely due to his efforts. In November, 1861, he withdrew from the ]Iethodist Episcopal church, because, as he affirmed, of its toleration of slave-holding, soon afterward becoming pastor of St. John's independ- ent Methodist church of New York city. He re- turned to his former connection in 1865, and was stationed in Jersey City, where he vehemently op- posed the claims of the Roman Catholic church, and published a tract on the case of Mary Anne Smith, a Methodist, whose father, a Roman Cath- olic, he alleged, had unjustly caused her arrest and detention in a Magdalen asylum, in New York city. His controversies with the Roman Catholics led to his appointment in 1868 as district secretary to the American and foreign Christian union. His nu- merous works include "The Trinity and Modern Arianism " (New York, 1843) ; "Tracts for the Times" (1843) ; "Elementary Astronomy, accompanied by Maps" (1846) ; Burritt's " Geography of the Heavens," edited and revised (1850) ; " High- School Astronomv " (1853) ; " Spirit-Rapping Un- veiled "' (1854); "Sacred Melodies" (1859); "Im- pending Crisis " (1859) ; " Immortalitv of the Soul " (1866);^ "Resurrection of the Body "(1866); "De- fence of American Methodism " (1866) : and " Pop- ular Amusements " (1867). See " Work Here, and Rest Hereafter, a Life of Rev. Hiram Mattison," by Rev. Nicholas Vansant, with an introduction by Rev. Edward Thomson (New York, 1870).

MATTOON, Ebenezer, patriot, b. in Amherst, Mass., 19 Aug., 1755; d. there, 11 Sept.. 1843. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1776. joined the army in Canada, was a lieutenant in an artillery company at the battle of Bemis Heights, 7 Oct.,