Claude Matthews Medallion

This medallion honors Claude Matthews, who farmed this corner of western Indiana before he ever held office. Born in Kentucky in eighteen forty five, he settled near Clinton and built a reputation as one of the finest cattle and horse breeders in the state, even helping found a national short horn cattle association in eighteen seventy two. In eighteen sixty eight he married Martha Whitcomb, daughter of an earlier Indiana governor, James Whitcomb.

Matthews went on to become governor himself, serving from eighteen ninety three to eighteen ninety seven. His years in office were hard ones, marked by a national rail and coal strike that reached into southern Indiana, where he called out the militia to keep the trains running. He died in eighteen ninety eight, just a year after leaving office, a stock breeder who rose to the governor's chair and was remembered here on the ground he worked.