[last accessed 9 Nov 2012]
SAMUEL1 MATHEWS was born Abt. 1580 in England, and died Aft. 1657 in England. He married (1) FRANCES GREVILL Abt. 1628 in Virginia. She was born Abt. 1590 in England, and died 1635 in Mathews Manor, Virginia. He married (2) SARAH HINTON 1638 in England. She was born 1613 in England, and died Aft. 1657 in England. ...
... The "daughter of Sir Thomas Hinton" was not Samuel Mathews first wife. He had previously been married to the widow of Cape Merchant, Abraham Peirsey, and he was her third husband. Frances Grevill was one of four women who left Bristol aboard the ship, Supply, in September, 1620 and who first married Captain Nathaniel West, brother to the third Lord Delaware, Governor of Virginia.
West died at some date between April 1623 and February 1623/4, being listed in the 1623 census and absent from that of '24, and in the latter year, Frances was living on Virginia Company land at Elizabeth City with her brother-in-law, Francis West. At some time thereafter, Frances Grevill West married Abraham Peirsey, a man of considerable substance who, in addition to a residence at Jamestown, had bought the 1000 acre "Flowerdew Hundred" on the south bank of the James, from Sir George Yeardley. When Peirsey died in January 1627/8, he apparently "left the best estate ever known in Virginia," (12) thus making Frances Grevill West Peirsey a still young and second time widow. That she was by now somewhat used was amply compensated for in the eyes of any colonist by the value of her legacies. Frances was executrix of Peirsey's will and she was charged "to make saile of all the estate as aforesaid to the profit it can be sould for." (13) This she was in no hurry to do, possibly because she was more concerned with her marriage to Samuel Mathews who apparently hooked her very soon after her former husband's demise. The Peirsey estate was still waiting to be settled when she died in 1633. ...
... We know that Samuel Mathews Sr. had two children and it is reasonable to deduce that both were the product of his first marriage to Frances Grevill, for the first was christened Samuel and the second Francis. Many people who have written about the Mathews family, have inexplicably hitched the name of Frances Grevill to Mary Hinton, an assumption for which there was not a shred of proof. (15) On the contrary, there is now archaeological evidence which strongly points to the second wife's first name beginning with "S" rather than "F" or "M". ...
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[Note: discrepancy in death dates for Frances Grevill (?)]
