Alexander Littlejohn Mathis (1832 - 1884)

Born 9 Sep 1832 in Gibson County, Tennessee

Ancestors

Husband of Martha Jane (Rust) Mathis — married 10 Jan 1855 in Tennessee

Descendants

Died 8 Oct 1884 at age 52 in Tennessee

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Biography

Alexander was born in 1832. He is the son of Carlton Mathis.

On 10 January 1855 he married Martha Jane Rust,^[1] (born 14 October 1833 in Gibson County, daughter of Nancy Rucker COOKE and John S. Rust). They were married by the Reverend Jacob Mathis, his uncle.

He served as blockade runner during the Civil War between Jackson and Hickman, Kentucky.

On his last run, he was captured by Yankees and condemned to hang, but his release was won due to the work of his friend and Union sympathizer Crick Martin. On 2 August 1865, he signed the [Federal] Amnesty Oath.

He died at the age of 52 8 October 1884 in Gibson County; he was buried in the Mathis graveyard near the Wrights Chapel Methodist Campgrounds. The stone marker was still “in good shape” and readable when visited in 1981. The inscription reads:

Farewell, my wife and children all

From you if me Christ doth call,

Mourn not for me—-it is in vain

To call me to your side again.

His wife Martha Jane reached age 92, living out her widowhood in the home of their son Luther Everett 11 Mathis. She is buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Jackson, Tennessee.

Children

1. Carthagena Corora Mathis (b.24 Nov 1855; m. 3 Jun 1875 J.E. York; d.12 Nov 1889)
2. Thornas Clinton Mathis (b.19 Mar 1857; m.22 Dec 1881 Mollie Thompson; d. Feb 1940)
3. Luther Everett 10 Mathis (1861 – 1940)
4. Edgar Lycurgeus Mathis (b.9 Sep 1832; m. Eula Wilson; d. Dec 1935)
5. Atlas Oscar Mathis (b.1862; m. 24 Dec 1899 Minnie Duke)
6. George Lee Mathis (b.1864; m. 31 Jan 1889 Eula Phillips)
7. Edward Mathis (b.1866)
8. James Wilson Mathis (b.22 Jul 1868; m. Maggie Johnson)

Sources

1. ↑ Edythe Rucker Whitley, Marriages of Gibson County, TN, (GPC, 1982), p 104: "A.I.J.[sic; Little John] Mathis to Martha J. Rust, Jan. 10, 1855"

See also:

• Frances Dean & Bernard M. Malloy, "Mathis Family of Virginia, North Carolina & Tennessee," unpublished manuscript, c2008.