Information about Obadiah comes from an biography of his father-in-law, William Richardson, in a Sevier County, Tennessee history book. According to this book, William Richardson ``was born in Virginia in 1746, and saw service in that state during the early stages of the revolutionary war. Shortly thereafter, he moved his family to the part of North Carolina that would later become Sevier County, Tennessee. He was accompanied by his son-in-law Obediah Matthews, husband of Richardson's daughter Leah. The family built a cabin beside a spring in the area that would become known as Richardson's Cove. \ldots Obediah Matthews, his son-in-law settled on a branch of the East Fork of the Little Pigeon River that is called Obies Branch. His son Robert, William's Grandson, settled on a creek in this same area that is known as Matthews Creek. Family tradition holds that the Obed River in Middle Tennessee was also named for Obediah.''
On June 12, 1783, Obadiah Matthews was granted 9 pounds worth of specie by North Carolina for his services during the revolution.
Anna Ruth Matthews of Sevierville, Tennessee is a descendent of Obadiah through Obadiah's only known son Robert. As of August 1996, her family had collected 2665 descendants of Robert and Leah Dobbins Matthews, covering nine generations, not counting spouses.
Since several of Obadiah's descendents are doing a fine job of compiling all of his descendents, I have generally only included the first few generations here.
In the 1840 Roane Co., TN, census, there is an Obediah Matthews, but the oldest male in the household is only 30--40 years old. That is too young to be this Obadiah, but perhaps it is an unknown son of this Obadiah?
Some of the Richardson family were killed by Indians in 1792. An account of it appeared in the Knoxville Gazette on 29 Dec 1792 and can be read on the WWW at: http://www.tngenweb.org/newspaper/kg014.htm.
Sources for this individual: @S142@ @S813@ @S236@ @S814@ @S404@
