Joseph W. Matthews

Joseph Warren Matthews (1812–1862) was an American politician who served as Governor of Mississippi from 1848 to 1850.

Matthews was born near Huntsville, Alabama. During his early manhood he came to Mississippi as a government surveyor, engaged in laying out the newly purchased Indian lands. Soon after the Chickasaw purchase he located as a planter in Marshall County, near the now extinct town of Salem. In 1840, he was elected representative to the legislature from Marshall County, and was senator from that county from 1844 to 1848. On June 7, 1847 the Democratic State Convention nominated Matthews for governor on the third ballot by a majority of fifty-one of twenty-seven for the other candidates. Matthews won the gubernatorial election over the Whig candidate, Major A.H. Bradford of Marshall County, by a vote of 26,985 to 13,997.