Stanley Matthews

Early life and education Matthews was born July 21, 1824, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the oldest of 11 children born to Thomas J. Matthews and Isabella Brown Matthews (his second wife).

In 1849, Stanley Matthews, John Celivergos Zachos, Ainsworth Rand Spofford and 9 others founded the Literary Club of Cincinnati. One year later Rutherford B. Hayes became a member. Other prominent members included future President William Howard Taft and notable club guests Ralph Waldo Emerson, Booker T. Washington, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and Robert Frost.

Early legal career Matthews was selected to serve as the clerk of the Ohio House of Representatives in 1848, and afterward served as a county judge in Hamilton County, Ohio. He was then elected to the Ohio State Senate for the 1st district, where he served from 1856 to 1858. He was then appointed as United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, serving from 1858 to 1861.

Military service At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Matthews resigned as U.S. Attorney and accepted a commission as lieutenant colonel with the 23rd Ohio Infantry Regiment of the Union Army. His superior officers included Colonel William S. Rosecrans and Major Rutherford B. Hayes, who would later become President of the United States. The regiment also included future President William McKinley, who served as a private and later rose to the rank of major. But Matthews did not enjoy the respect of his troops, and within a year he resigned from the 23rd Ohio Infantry. He commanded a brigade in the Army of the Ohio, which later became known as the Army of the Cumberland.

He ran for the United States House of Representatives in 1876, but was defeated. Then, in early 1877, he represented Rutherford B. Hayes before the electoral commission that Congress created to resolve the disputed 1876 presidential election. in the last weeks of Hayes's presidency. The nomination ran into opposition in the U.S. Senate because of Matthews's close ties to railroad interests and due to his close long-term friendship with Hayes. Consequently, the Judiciary Committee took no action on the nomination during the remainder of the 46th Congress.

On March 14, 1881, 10 days after taking office, President James A. Garfield re-nominated Matthews to the Court. on May 12, the Senate voted 24–23 to confirm Matthews. The vote was the closest for any successful Supreme Court nominee in U.S. Senate history; no other justice has been confirmed by a single vote.

Matthews's tenure as a member of the Supreme Court began on May 17, 1881, when he took the judicial oath, and ended March 22, 1889, upon his death.

"Minnie" died in Washington, D.C., on January 22, 1885, at age 63. Matthews married Mary Frances Theaker née Kellogg, widow of Thomas Clarke Theaker, on June 23, 1886, in New York.

Death and legacy Matthews's health declined precipitously during 1888; he died in Washington, D.C., on March 22, 1889. He was survived by second wife Mary, as well as five of his children with Minnie: Mortimer, Grace, Eva, Jane, and Paul. He is interred at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Daughter Jane Matthews married her late father's colleague on the Court, Associate Justice Horace Gray, on June 4, 1889. Daughter Eva Lee Matthews became a schoolteacher and monastic, founding the Community of the Transfiguration, which engaged in charity work in Ohio, Hawaii and in China, leading to her liturgical commemoration in the Episcopal Church. Son Paul Clement was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey from 1915 to 1937. His son, Justice Matthews's grandson, Thomas Stanley, was editor of Time magazine from 1949 to 1953.

A collection of Justice Matthews's correspondence and other papers is located at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center library in Fremont, Ohio and open for research. Additional papers and collections are at: Cincinnati Historical Society, Cincinnati, Ohio; Library of Congress, Manuscript and Prints & Photographs Divisions, Washington, D.C.; Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio; Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, New York; State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Archives Division, Madison, Wisconsin; and Mississippi State Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi.