Notes:
Data source is "Ruth M.F. Tucker rutucker@cfu.net . Excerpt from her book, "Matthews Memoirs: Thomas and Nancy Coleman Family Through the Ninth Generation"
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Thomas J. MATTHEWS, a farmer, was born 15 March 1782, probably in New York. He died 30 April 1855 in Elk Township, Delaware County, Iowa. He was first buried on the family farm in Elk Township since there were no plotted cemeteries in the area. Almost 50 years later his body was moved to Fairview Cemetery, Earlville, Iowa. He married Nancy COLEMAN, daughter of William COLEMAN & Mary WILSON, before 12 May 1815. She was born 15 December 1790 and died 25 April 1870. She was buried in Fairview Cemetery, Earlville, Iowa.
Thomas and Nancy established a home near Troy, New York in 1825. Five children were born to the family. In 1830, they moved to Brantford, Ontario, Canada, where Thomas J. and Woodruff (Rufus) were born. In 1845, the family returned to the United States to a farm near Poplar Grove, Boone Co., IL:, where the youngest child, George W., was born. In 1849, the family again started westward and arrived in Elk Township, Delaware County, Iowa.
"Thomas, his wife, Nancy, and some of their children settled on a tract of land (800 acres) in what is now Colony, Elk, and Oneida Townships north of Earlville, IA. Tradition says that in order to reach the land office in Dubuque, Iowa, in time to file on the land (Delaware Co. Elk Twp. S.E. -36-90-Range 4), Thomas walked all day and all night to be there when the office opened in the year 1849. (One source gives date 12 June 1850) The land was purchased for $1.25 per acre. It included an extra 200 acres of timber northwest of Elk Creek, and about 6 miles from the homestead. Their house was built on the Old Military Road from Dubuque, to Dyersville, to New Vienna, and followed the ridge to Strawberry Point and on to Fort Atkinson.
"Before his son William died, his family promised to move the remains of his father, Thomas, to the cemetery in Earlville. On the appointed day of the moving, a special space on the farm, then occupied by Stephen Matthews, was opened with the exception of finding the remains. There was no remains in this specific area. The oldest son, George, remembered the grave was a certain number of steps from a certain land mark. The area was paced out and on excavation, the remains were found." *Legend passed down from Sarah Matthews Phillips, who remembered observing this as a small child.
"Uncle John, Aunt Sis, and Stephen Matthews told of seeing their grandmother, Nancy Coleman Matthews, sitting in a little chair purchased for her in 1812. This chair is now in the possession of Mabel Matthews of Earlville. Nancy smoked a clay pipe.. . . ."