Matthews Farm

In 1848 Thomas and Margaret Spencer Matthews came to Worth Township from Ontario, Canada, following other farm families who migrated from Upper Canada to Michigan. Matthews’s grandfather, Thomas Elmes Matthews, a Loyalist during the American Revolution, left New York for Upper Canada after the war. Young Thomas’s father, Peter, was executed in Toronto in 1838 for his role in the 1837-38 Rebellion of Upper Canada. Today historians consider him a patriot and a martyr. This farmhouse, built in 1852, exemplifies plank-frame construction commonly used in Upper Canada during the early nineteenth century. An English hay barn also survives. Thomas lived quietly, farming and raising his seven children. He died in 1893 at age seventy-one. The Matthews Farm is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.