Jasper Walter Matthews

 

Date of Birth and Age: August 3rd, 1839, 27

Sexual Preference: Heterosexual

Ethnic Background: English

Occupation: Owner of the New Shelby Butcher Shop

Family

Father - Edward Matthews (1800-1863)

Mother - Madeline Stuart Matthews (1809-1864)

Brother - Edward Matthews Jr. (1828-1862)

Sister & Brother-In-Law - Wilhelmina Wheeler (nee Matthews) (1831-1864) and

Martin Wheeler (1827-1864) (No children)

Sister- Suellen Matthews (1834-?, Believed to be Deceased)

Brother and Sister-In-Law - Donald Matthews (1837-1862) and

Josephine Matthews (nee Ashby) (1841- , Alive)

Nephew - Andrew Matthews (1862- , Alive)

Brother - Ashley Matthews (1838-1838, Died at one month)

Brother - Stuart Matthews (1842-1863)

Sister - Alice Matthews (1845- , Alive)

Wife - N/A

Current Residence: The boarding house until he finishes setting up his shop, likely with living quarters above it.

 

Appearance: Jasper is what anyone would consider a proper gentleman. His shirts occasionally have blood stains near the end of the sleeves. If going out though he’s sure to put on a clean shirt, usually white. He’s rarely seen without a vest on over his shirts. Occasionally he’ll wear a jacket as well. He’s always had a neat appearance though and expects of himself to keep it up even if dust is inevitable. His hands have acquired a number of cuts from various knives slipping and nicking his fingers. He’s thankfully gotten better over time so they are mostly scarred over. With the exception of this, his hands still look under worked. His other notable scars are on his right shoulder and abdomen where he’s been shot before.

 

He has more of a squared jaw, rounding out when he smiles and showing a bit of a dimple in his cheek. His grey eyes are set below thick eyebrows and usually neatly styled dark brown hair. It’s grown out a bit longer than he might like at times, but as long as he can still get a comb through it quickly. He has a standard if not a bit thin build, but then any muscle would be from processing cattle and other meats.

 

Personality: Jasper is very much a rich boy fallen from grace. He still insists upon behaving as he was raised to be, polite to women regardless of their station, soft spoken and never raise a hand to anyone unless you intend to use it. He’s quite responsible, but then he has also had that more thrust upon him than from any desire to be such. Jasper is very careful with his words and how he uses them to make the exact point he was intending to make. He also keeps himself very well groomed as well as his room and shop, trying to keep as much dust out of anywhere it might try to hide. The one constant lesson from childhood that he’s tried to get himself over is the prejudices he has against black folk and the belief that they‘re not completely human.

 

The last thing you want to get him started on is the war, especially if he’s had a few beers in him. He is quite likely to talk your ear off about how he wasn’t trying to fight to make sure that the slaves were still there, but because the Declaration of Independence said to.  The federal government was taking up too much power, so there was little to do but disconnect themselves from it and create a new government. He didn’t approve of picking a fight with the Union, but looking back, joining the war effort is actually what likely saved his life so he wasn‘t at home when it burned. He’s still sure he was on the right side, even if it was on the loosing side, just not the amount of blood that had to be spilled that ultimate lost them all their freedom. He still has nightmares about it occasionally. The faces of his dead brothers coming to haunt him in his sleep or the feel of hot metal going into him like he was made of butter.

 

Jasper feels oddly out of his element all the way out west. He’s planning to do the best that he can with what he’s got. He tries to take one day at a time and is thankful for every new morning that he hasn’t dropped over dead. Too many people aren’t living any more and he believes he should be grateful to not just be another wooden cross in a field where no one would ever remember his name. He’s also very good with spending time with his nephew, reading to him nightly and taking up more of the position his brother left vacant. If nothing else, it keeps him from survivor’s guilt.

 

Special Skills/Weapons Used: Jasper has become very talented with knives, though this does not involve throwing them. He also has a military carbine that he keeps at the house that was issued to him during the war. His other gun is a personal one, an 1861 Colt Army Steel. He would consider his only other special skill that he is and sounds very well educated and has a fairly quick mind to try and keep himself out of trouble.

 

Weaknesses: Jasper has an actual physical weakness in his right shoulder from injured muscle that didn’t quite heal right. The area gets sore easily, but he’s managed to become just about as good with his left hand as his right enough that he keeps his gun on the left side. When things go badly, he’s likely to turn to alcohol, though that only ever seems to make things worse. He’s more of an angry drunk that would rather pick a fight than look at you, though he’s likely to lose if it came down to a fist fight.

 

History

 

Edward Matthews Sr. was a cotton plantation owner outside of Jonesboro Georgia. Edward grew up as the oldest of two and grew up learning everything about keeping slaves in line and what to do to those that tried to run away and were too much trouble. Punishing them was never a problem for him and he would eventually try to teach his sons the same. By the time he became a man he could run things just as well if not almost better than his father and took over the everyday running of things and purchase of new slaves.  When he was twenty-five he married Madeline Stuart and three years later they had their first child, named after his father.

 

Jasper Matthews is the sixth child of eight born to Edward and Madeline, fifth to survive the first year of life. He was rarely seen outside their house the first year of life as his mother was afraid of losing him to some sort of sickness. Except perhaps a small cold, he was perfectly fine and healthy and grew into an active little boy. His childhood was relatively normal for having a large family, a rather odd thing when they weren’t working their own land. His mother taught all the children in reading, writing, French and mathematics while they were young, having a tutor come and teach the boys thing such as biology, geography and history. Their father taught them more about running the plantation.  Jasper’s favorite thing to do though was going into town and making friends with some of the people who would come in to do their business since he was old enough to wander off. His parents or older siblings would eventually find him and carry him back.

 

He was also found occasionally out by the little houses set up for the slaves they had, just going to watch them. Occasionally he’d bring Stuart or Alice along with him for company. He’d try not to get caught though and listened quietly if they started singing or telling stories. There was once he overheard a group talking about running away and immediately ran to tell his father. He didn’t expect for them to be beaten when they hadn’t actually done anything yet to cause such a reaction. Jasper just thought they might go talk to them and ask them to just stay and be friendly about things. His child mind couldn’t quite comprehend why his father would lash out like that and decided he would never repeat anything else he might hear.

 

His brother Edward was more interested in politics around the state rather than getting married, also going on to get a degree at the University of Georgia. There was some talk that he was also the father of some of the slave children, but nothing that anyone would accuse him of to his face. Wilhelmina “Mina” married a tradesman in Jonesboro that built wheels for carts and wagons of people still planning on heading out west. Their father was rather disappointed with this, though Mina never had any children. Suellen was just never interested in marriage, though Donald found himself a wife with little trouble and soon decided to take his inheritance and got a little house of his own in Jonesboro. Jasper was just content with his own studies rather than going off to some fancy school in Athens. He had a few sweethearts, but none that he ever seriously considered courting to the point of proposing. Plus he still had his two younger siblings to look after. Stuart was far more difficult than Alice though as the younger boy enjoyed trying to pick bar fights while his calmer brother was usually dragging him out before too much could happen. When that was the worst part of the week though, life was fairly easy.

 

And then the war came. Jasper considered those that attacked Fort Sumter to be a bunch of idiots. Lincoln had allowed them to secede (something he was completely for) and create the Confederate States of America without doing anything to stop them, so why did they have to cause a fuss now? His opinions didn’t stop him from enlisting with his brothers in the Confederate Army. Edward for the glory, Donald for his “country” and Stuart, fudging his age to even get in, was there for the mere chance to fight someone without his brothers stopping him. Jasper knew the sort of reaction he would get if he refused to go along and just signed on. Both Jasper and Donald were in the same Battalion, sent to North Carolina and later to Virginia. He promised his sister-in-law he would take care of his older brother when they were sent off. They were going to win after all and go back to things just being peaceful with cotillions and picnics. The two were still training when news reached them that Josephine was expecting at the end of that year. Donald tried to get himself out to go back home and be there for his wife, but they refused to let him out of his obligation.

 

It didn’t take long for Jasper to be almost bored of his brother’s talking on and on about his new child and wanting to get out as soon as possible when his son, Andrew, was born in January of 1962. Three months later, new reached them of casualties at the Battle of Shiloh including Edward Jr. It was almost surreal to think that they were just never going to see him again, but that was nothing compared to their first real battle. They moved into Virginia during the Seven Days’ battle and saw the first sign of the war they had heard so much of. It was also another tragedy for the Matthews family. Donald had taken front line in hopes of getting a release to go back to Georgia. Instead he got himself shot in the chest when Jasper found him. Positive that he was still breathing, Jasper tried to drag him back to the medical tents when he was shot in the right shoulder. It went all the way through and Jasper soon found himself yelling at the medics to take care of his brother first, but Donald had already passed away.

 

That loss hit him harder than anything else he would see in the rest of the war and it caused him a fair bit of numbness that settled in. His nephew would now grow up without a father and Josephine was a widow with no one to comfort her but her baby and her sisters-in-law. Plus he had promised to return her husband to her in one piece and still breathing… He kept writing letters home to keep them updated, unsure what else to do now but finish this war and hope like hell things would go their way.

 

Edward Matthews Sr. would pass away within the next year. Some reports say it was of old age, but Jasper is still sure it was from the knowledge that his two eldest sons were gone. By all rights, if he even made it back alive, he was now owner of everything the Matthews family owned. For now his brother-in-law, Martin Wheeler, was taking care of things, having little use for the war and not bothering to even try fighting. Stuart was killed at the Battle of Gettysburg, the same battle where Jasper obtained the wound on his stomach. With the exception of his infant nephew, Jasper was the only Matthews male remaining.

 

While others might have held out the hope of ultimate victory, Jasper was losing faith and managed a transfer to another regiment retreating back to Georgia in October of 1964. They were then stationed in the state capital of Milledgeville when Sherman’s forces marched in and took over the city. He managed to get away and was soon considered MIA, taking the first unmanned horse he could find and headed back along the burned path.

 

He found his way all the way to his front door, though that was almost all that was still standing of the structure. The cotton fields, shacks where the slaves had lived and most of his childhood home had been burned to the ground and was still smoking. Among the ruins he found his mother, Mina and Martin. Afraid of what he might find in town, he hurried to his brother’s old home. Pushing the door open, he was faced with a pistol pointed right at his chest by a 19 year old girl that looked scared out of her mind and demanded that he drop any of his weapons. He did as he was told a little reluctantly before he suddenly found himself being hugged by another woman with a toddler tugging at her skirts. Josephine still remembered the face of her husband’s brother, causing Alice to lower the gun and also give her brother a hug before he had time to say much of a hello.

 

They both told him what happened, trying not to talk at the same time as Alice told of going to visit her sister-in-law and plead her to come back with her to the plantation and Josephine talked about how they were too late anyhow and the house had been stormed by Union troops who had seen little Matthew and left the two women alone. Jasper caught them up with the fate of their home, though none of them seemed to know where Suellen might be.

 

When the smoke had settled, they went to collect anything of value that might be left in the old house and stored it up in Josephine’s house where the four stayed through the end of the war. In May they collected everything and decided to get out of Georgia while they still could. The quartet headed north with three guns between them, a cart and two horses and what they could manage to put together in the cart and headed out. It was far from an easy journey, but they reached St Louis just as winter was settling into the Great Plains. By then they were low on supplies and had nothing to try and pay for stagecoach travel. The girls wished to just settle there and found a boarding house that gave them rooms in exchange for the horses and cart.

 

Jasper tried to find work any where he could when he met Richard Clark in the saloon one night. A little bit too far gone in the bottle, the young southern man told Clark about the last few years and loosing the war and his home and everything to the Yankees while now trying to take care of what remained of his family. Mr. Clark was touched and promised him work if he was sober enough in the morning to make it to the address given to him. It was a small butcher shop and the man put him to work cleaning things around the shop. It was menial labor for someone so well educated, but he was desperate for something.  Alice also found work to help support the household at the bank, being a secretary. The pair saved as much as they could, trying to cut corners wherever possible. Jasper would usually keep himself amused while working by thinking of what his father would say if he could see his children now. Neither having lifted much of a finger in their lifetimes and now his only living son was cleaning up blood and anything else that might have fallen on the floor. He had been working there six months when Clark pulled him aside and asked if the young man might be interested in learning the trade.

 

He had nothing to lose and was taken under the older man’s care and taught how to tell good meat from bad, how to cut up it up and grind some to make ground up beef and sausage. He learned how to find a good animal and tricks to tell if the rancher was attempting to trick you. Jasper was an eager learner and took it all in as quickly as possible. Soon he was working behind the counter rather than cleaning under it. When Clark died that following winter, not only did he leave the store to Jasper, but another butcher moved into the growing city. The other business creating competition for prices and making it difficult to make any sort of money so the store suffered for five months before he decided to sell most of his stock to the other man and the building to the highest buyer.

 

Between what they had saved up over the last year and a half and the money made off the sale, they had more than enough to pack up their things and get stagecoach tickets to travel further west. They decided on New Shelby where Jasper might be able to set up a new shop as well and they could make a new life for themselves. Newly arrived, the four Matthews are at the boarding house until everything is set up and they have a place to live.