Squire Mathews Passes

Until recently I didn't know that a justice of the peace did not need to be a lawyer. Which makes sense, of course, since even today in some jurisdictions you don't need to be a lawyer to be elected as a judge, and non-lawyers can be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. It just didn't enter my head when I was giving you that erudite lecture on J.P.s and their functions.

Poor John Mathews had to die for me to become conscious of that little fact.

Yes, John Mathews had served 28 years (with one interruption) as a justice of the peace without even having been a lawyer, and yet, as one obituary observed, "his advice was often sought on matters of importance by the legal fraternity." And he was involved in so many of the matters arising from bad behavior in Ainsworth that I simply couldn't let him pass without comment.

He had been born in Ohio in 1833. His parents eventually moved to Porter County, Indiana, and there in 1858 he married Louise Hardesty. She died the following year. In 1860 he married Mary Crisman; they had one son, William. His wife and son survived him.

When the Civil War broke out in April 1861, John enlisted in the Indiana infantry. He was wounded on July 8, 1861, at Bealington, Virginia. After several months' recuperation at home, he re-enlisted and served out the rest of the war, luckily without further injury although he did see a good deal of fighting.

After the war he and Mary came to Hobart. John worked in the harness trade for several years, then tried his hand at various other enterprises, including a grocery and a bakery; in the early 1880s he took a job as a clerk at the Hobart Pennsy depot. Then in 1886 he was elected justice of the peace, and office occupied his time and energy for nearly the next three decades. In later years he developed a special expertise in getting and increasing pensions for old soldiers and their widows.

He was a member of the Hobart lodges of the Masons and the Odd Fellows.

He died peacefully on February 28, 1917. He is buried in Hobart Cemetery.


(Click on image to enlarge)


Sources:
♦ "Taps Sounded for Another Veteran of the Civil War." Hobart News 1 Mar. 1917.
♦ "Death of Squire Mathews." Hobart Gazette 2 Mar. 1917.