Mathews, Alfred Edward (sold)

Alfred Edward Mathews (June 24, 1831 – October 30, 1874) was an English born American artist, author, and illustrator active in the middle part of the 19th century. Mathews was born in Bristol, England in 1831. His family emigrated to the United States and 1833 where they settled in Rochester, Ohio. There Mathews took work as a typesetter in his brother, Charles Mathews; newspaper, the Ohio Democrat. In the 1850s Alfred too new work as a traveling bookseller where he traveled throughout New England. Later in the 1850s he found work as a school teacher in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Mathews returned to Ohio and enlisted in the Union Army, where he served with the 31st Ohio Volunteer Inventory. He participated in the Siege of Corinth and the Battles of Stones River, Lookout Mountain, and Mission Ridge. He proved an able draughtsman and produced topographical maps and views of important war events, including a panorama of Vicksburg. After the war Mathews headed west, settling briefly in Nebraska City before moving on to Denver, where his November 13, 1865 arrival was noted Rocky Mountain News. He began work immediately on a book of views and sketches highlighting the beauty and commercial prosperity of Colorado. The work proved both poplar and influential, earning him additional work in other Colorado cities, Montana, and California. Eventually he settled into a home on the Big Thompson River, west of Boulder. After only a few months there he contracted appendicitis and died on October 30, 1874.