Going back another generation

Another generation back from Allen Matthews, his parents (my 5th-great-grandparents) were Wiley Mathews and Sarah Freeze. AncestryDNA's DNA Circles has me and the tests I administer on my Mom's side of the family in a group for both Wiley and Sarah. I know there are a large number of connections out there who descend from these two. I am going to work carefully, using what is in available records, to try to build out a timeline for their departure from North Carolina to their arrival in Tennessee and later later settlement in Mississippi.

NC & TN Early Land Records, 22 Jul 1826

Based on exchanges with another Mathews/Matthews researcher, Wiley is believed to have arrived in Warren County, Tennessee between 1810 and 1812. He probably followed his brother Kinchen Mathews to Warren County, as Kinchen was in Roane County as early as 1801 and then in Warren County.

Source: Google Maps. Chatham, NC to Warren, TN.

Wiley appears in the 1820 and 1830 US Census in Warren County, Tennessee.

Wiley acquired a large tract of land covering 640 acres in Coffee County, Tennessee in 1836. The survey was witnessed by his son Matthew Mathews and my 5th-great-grandfather Matthew M. Davis (father of Sarah Davis Matthews). He added another 200 acres to this on the headwaters of Hickory Creek in Coffee County in February 1837. Wiley and Matthew Mathews' land can be seen on the 1839 Coffee County tax list below.

Source: Ancestry. Tennessee Tax List, 1839.

Wiley assigned his lands in Warren County to his son William in October 1837. It looks like he then moved on to neighboring Coffee County. Wiley's son Elijah Mathews was also in Coffee County, Tennessee in 1839.

Wiley and Sarah's son Matthew died in Coffee County sometime before March 1839. Wiley appears in the 1840 US Census in Coffee County, Tennessee.

In June 1840, Elijah Mathews appears in a court case in Coffee County (State of Tennessee v Elijah Matthews). Wiley was a witness in the case.

By 1850, Wiley had relocated to Tishomingo County, Mississippi, along with several of his children.

1850 US Census, Tishomingo County, MS

Wiley and Sarah had at least the following children:
- Matthew Mathews, born 1805 in North Carolina, died before March 1839 in Coffee County, Tennesse
- Claiborne Mathews (various spellings including Claborn, Clibourn), born in North Carolina in 1810, died 16 December 1879 in Smith County, Tennessee
- William Lewis Mathews, born in 1812 in Warren County, Tennessee, died 9 February 1897 in Montgomery County, Texas
- Allen Mathews, born in 1813 in Warren County, Tennessee, died sometime before 1870 in Metcalfe County, Kentucky (my 4th-great-grandfather)
- Elijah Mathews, born about 1819 in Warren County, Tennessee
- Sarah Mathews, born in 1823 in Warren County, Tennessee
- Tapley B. Mathews, born in 1828 in Warren County, Tennessee
- W. Stanford Mathews, born in 1829 in Warren County, Tennessee

By 1860, Wiley was listed as a farm laborer in the household of his son, William Mathews. William had become a baptist minister. Sarah Freeze Mathews must have died before the 1860 Census.

1860 US Census, Tishomingo County, MS

Wiley was still living in William's household in the 1870 Census.

1870 US Census, Tishomingo County, MS

Wiley disappears after the 1870 Census, and he is presumed to have died in Tishomingo County, Mississippi. I am planning to make another visit to the DAR Research Library and look for gaps in the records.