If you attend regular meetings held in the historic Mathews courthouse on Court Street, you may have wondered: who are all these faces staring down at me?
The walls are lined with portraits, mostly photographs, dating from the 19th century into the 20th. They are individuals honored for their service to the county or state, and there’s an online link where you can read all about them.
Becky Foster Barnhardt, Mathews Memorial Library’s head of history and genealogy, has compiled information on these mostly men—and a couple of women—and her compilation is available on the library’s website: mathewslibrary.org/history-genealogy. Click on historic-sites and scroll to Historic Courthouse Square. A link at the end of this tab, “Portraits in the historic circa 1834 Courthouse,” leads you to her compilation.
The honored individuals, whose images have been accepted formally during sessions of the court, include two portraits of Thomas Mathews, for whom the county is named; Captain Sally Tompkin...