MATTHEW ROWAN
IN 1730, when Burrington was commissioned royal governor, he nominated Matthew Rowan to be appointed by the Crown a member of his Council. This gentleman was then residing at Bath, where he was engaged in merchandising, carrying on the trade with Ireland, for although of Scotch descent, he was Irish born. His grandfather was Rev. Andrew Rowan, a son of John Rowan of Govan, Scotland, but in 1661 the young preacher was inducted into a charge in Antrim, Ireland, and among his sons was Rev. John Rowan, the father of Matthew, the subject of this sketch.
When Matthew Rowan first came to Carolina is unknown. It is probable that for some years he accompanied his own vessel and cargo from Ireland to Bath, returning for new goods prior to locating permanently; in 1729 he was, however, so thoroughly identified with the Bath community that he was then elected a church warden, and the next year he was a representative in the Assembly.
Burrington brought over his commission as councillor in 1731, and in January, 1732, he was sworn in; but perhaps because his domicile was in a remote part of the province he did not often attend the Council meetings. However, before 1734 Rowan moved to the Cape Fear, where he was associated with John Baptista Ashe in establishing a saw-mill on the North East River in the vicinity of Burgaw, and in 1735 he was a justice of the peace of New Hanover County, and in 1737 he was appointed also a justice of the peace for Bladen County, where he seems to have resided. He now attended the Councils regularly, and was the supporter of Governor Johnston in the early years of his administration. In 1735 he bought, along with Governor Johnston and Colonel Innes, lots in Wilmington, and was a party to Governor Johnston's scheme to make Wilmington the emporium and principal town on the Cape Fear instead of Brunswick.
In 1736 the governor appointed him surveyor-general of the province; and the next year he and Robert Halton and Edward Moseley ran a part of the boundary line between North and South Carolina. From this appointment and employment it would seem that although at first a seafaring man and then a merchant, he had been well educated, at least in mathematics. He prospered as a planter, having at that time some twenty-five negroes, and attained for himself a high position in the esteem of the gentlemen in that part of the province. The councillors took precedence according to rank and seniority of commission. On the death of Governor Johnston, in 1752, Nathaniel Rice, who had come over with Burrington twenty years before as attorney-general, being the senior councillor, became president of the Council, but himself survived less than six months, and on his death, in January, 1753, Rowan, who was next in Council, took the oaths of office as president and commander-in-chief of the province. During his administration there were but two sessions of the Assembly in the spring of 1753 and of 1754. That was the long Assembly, which the members of the northern counties would not attend. Those were the last years of the period of disturbance during which the northern counties would not recognize the authority of the General Assembly as constituted by the Act of 1746, giving to the new counties equal representation with the five original precincts of Albemarle. But notwithstanding that disturbance, the western section of the province had received a marvelous accession of population. In the summer of 1753, President Rowan reported to the Board of Trade that "in the year 1746 I was up in the country that is now Anson, Orange and Rowan counties. There was not then above one hundred fighting men. There is now at least three thousand, for the most part Irish-Protestants and Germans; and daily increasing." In the summer and fall of that year there was great concern felt in England about the expected hostilities of the French and Indians. In November President Rowan reported: "Last June three French and five Northward Indians came down to kill some of the Catawbas, but were met by thirteen of the Catawba Indians, who killed two French and three of the Northern Indians. The other three made their escape. The five were killed dead, so that no information could be had from them. This action was within less than two miles of Rowan County court-house during the sitting of the court." President Rowan immediately took steps to organize the militia in the several counties and provide to defend the province from anticipated attacks. The next spring the trouble came, and application being made to North Carolina for assistance by Virginia, President Rowan convened the Assembly on the 19th of February, and issued paper money to raise and provide for a regiment of 750 men for Virginia, and to finish the fort at the mouth of the Cape Fear and the one at Ocracoke Inlet, and to provide arms and ammunition for the poorer inhabitants of Rowan and Anson counties. He appointed Colonel Innes to the command of the regiment, and was active in putting the province in a state of defense. There were twenty-two counties at that time, and he formed a regiment of foot in each, and formed nine troops of horse and mentioned that he proposed forming eight more. He computed that the militia would muster about 15,000 men. At the spring session of the Assembly of 1753, a new county was laid off out of the northern part of Anson, and it was named Rowan in honor of the new president of the province, who seems to have had the good will of the northern counties and of the western settlements, as well as of the Cape Fear sections; and the two years that he administered affairs the government was well sustained. In October, 1754, Arthur Dobbs, who had been appointed governor immediately after the news of Governor Johnston's death had reached England, but who had lingered at London for more than a year, arrived in Virginia and came over the country to his government. This terminated Rowan's administration. He continued to act as councillor until 1760, dying in that year. Several of his relatives were with him in North Carolina—one, Jerry Rowan, who, in 1734, resided in New Hanover County; another, Thomas, and his brother Acheson; and one, Robert Rowan, who, in 1754, was the major in Innes's regiment. He doubtless was the Robert Rowan who was a patriot in the Revolution, a citizen of Cumberland County, and was the first to sign the association paper of June, 1775, adopted by the committees for the Cape Fear counties. He rendered important services during the War of the Revolution, which is the more to be appreciated because of the extended disaffection throughout that region; and after the formation of the State government, he served in the House of Commons. He married Mrs. Grove, the mother of William Barry Grove, and he was of kin to the Hays and Groves, who were descendants of a Miss Rowan, probably his cousin.
The name Rowan is perpetuated in Rowan County, which was established in the spring of 1753 by the General Assembly. The King, claiming the exclusive right to establish counties, disallowed that act, but in 1756 the county was re-established. The first court, near which the Indian fight took place, according to tradition, was held in the Jersey settlement, not far from Trading Ford. At that first term the court, June, 1753, directed that "the court-house, gaol, and stocks shall be located where the Irish settlement forks"; and such was the beginning of Salisbury.
S A. Ashe.
(Source: Biographical History of North Carolina from Colonial Times to Present, By Samuel A. Ashe, Vol. III, published 1906)
