By William “Skip” Deegans
Following the end of the Civil War, politics in Greenbrier County were, to say the least, topsy-turvy. Greenbrier Countians were, by and large, sympathetic to the southern cause, and many local men filled the ranks of the Confederate Army. At war’s end, Greenbrier Unionists became emboldened and instituted a test oath requiring office holders to swear they had never borne arms against the United States. Lewisburg’s Henry Mason Mathews (shown in the etching) who had been a major in the Confederate Army was elected from the Ninth District to the state Senate. When the Senate convened in 1866, Mathews was refused a seat in the Senate even though he had signed an oath that he would support the Constitution of the United States.
With time, tensions dissipated, and in 1876 Mathews was overwhelmingly elected governor. Then, as it is now, public education was controversial. Mathews, who had been educated at the Lewisburg Academy and the University of Virginia, favored a free school system that was supported by public taxes. He said, “The only ground upon which government can undertake to establish and support schools is that the education of the children is necessary for the safety and prosperity of the state…” Moreover, he said, “The true principle is, to treat, for the purpose of education, the children of the State as wards of the State.”
Sources: A History of Greenbrier County by Otis K. Rice, Prominent Men of West Virginia by Alvaro F. Gibbens and George Atkinson.
Etching from Prominent Men of West Virginia (1890).
