William James Mathis1
M, (13 November 1854 - 12 November 1919)
| Last Edited |
3 Mar 2000 |
| Researcher |
0 |
| Unrelated |
0 |
| Marriage* | | Principal=Mary Eliphel Sloan1 |
| Note* | | Paul West: Before the Civil War, the Mathises owned and lived on a plantation on Route 3, five or six miles south of Callao on the west side of the road. The Burnam plantation was accross the road, east of the Mathis plantation. My Aunt Daisy, Uncle Bethel, Aunt Fannie, Delbert Burnam and I visited the old plantation sight several years ago. No old buildings were seen. Life on the plantation was described to Delbert Burnam by a cousin Harry Burnam. Harry was over ninety years of age at the time and lived in Macon, MO. Grandpa Bill Mathis as he was called had the following brother and sisters: 1.John 2.Vi nes 3. Christopher Columbus (Green) 4. Molly 5. Annie. The Mathis family owned and loved fine horses.
Grandpa Hill Mathis never left a record of his family. He was very close-mouthed. Great Grandfather Mathis and his wife died three years apart. Two of their former slaves, Uncle Mose and Aunt Elizah, continued to reside on the plantation. They clothed, fed and took care of the children until they could provide for themselves. By the time Grandpa and Grandma Mathis married, the Mathis inheritance had dwindled to almost nothing. “Green” Mathis was a gambler. He made so many debts that land and other assets were sold to pay off his gambling debts. Grandpa and Grandma moved their family down into Arkansas where they went broke farming and then moved back to Macon County. My Uncle Bethel Mathis told me that the William Mathis family came to Carrollton from Macon County in 1909 so that grandpa could work for the Prairie Pipe Line Company. When the construction of the oil pipe line was completed and the station built, he became engaged in farming for a number of years. Prior to his death in 1919, he was bedfast. Grandma Mathis, in order to help support the family, became what would be known today as an optometrist. She had two specilly made suitcases that containing approximately two hundred lenses, fifty glasses frames, an instrument similar to a sterescope and an optical instrument with two eye glasses used for obtaining a single image. Carrying these two suitcases, she visited door to door. If anyone was having trouble reading, she would place a pair of lenses of the same power in the sterescope for the patient to try. On the end of the sterescope was a card with writing on it. When the patient found a pair of lenses through which he could easily read the writing, Grandma placed the lenses in a steel wire spectacle frame and the patient had a new pair of glasses., Principal=Mary Eliphel Sloan1 |
| Birth* | 13 November 1854 | Thayer History had the 15th.1,2 |
| Death* | 12 November 1919 | Thayer History had 12th.1,2 |
| Burial* | after 12 November 1919 | Howard Cemetery, Macon Co., MO1 |
Citations
- [S40] Paul Woodrow West, Morris-Sloan-Mathis Family History (n.p.: unpublished, July 16, 1989).
- [S92] II Selah Pomeroy Thayer, Our Ancestral History 1505-1986 (n.p.: n.pub., 1986).