The son of Allen Matthews and Sitty Riley,  Harmon P. Matthews was born 22 May 1813, in Twiggs County, Georgia. He died 23 October 1897, in Hopewell, Simpson County, Mississippi.

Harmon was a most talented man.   He could make anything from the blacksmith shop to woodwork.   A most impressive item was a piece of wood carved into a wooden lock that was the size of a baseball.   It actually worked!

A man of the woods, Harmon worked diligently.   He cleared the land, made a road, built a log cabin, and split fence rails with single broadaxe.

There is one story about his hunting in the woods and he had his gun leaning up on a tree nearby, when all of a sudden, a deer was coming his way.  He couldn't get to his gun so he stood behind a big tree and when the buck came by, he grabbed him and with his very large hands made into a tremendous fist, he hit the deer in the heart and it killed it on the spot!

He was a very religious man.  When his church he went to in Copiah County decided they were going to do away with the practice of "foot washing" he got his towel and washbasin and walked out.  They started another church on the other side of the Pearl River, in Simpson County, called Palestine, and that is where he, his two wives, (Mary Gates and Adeline Miller) and daughter Emaline are buried in the old section of the cemetery.
 
 

Click here to view Harmon P. Matthews's musket.