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| John Mathis (Photo by John H. Yates) |
The Great John Mathis Wikitree entry.
It should be noted that the SAR stopped accepting Leah Blackman's History of Little Egg Harbor Township as evidence that proves that Great John Mathis contributed to the Revolutionary War. Leah (Mathis) Blackman was the 2nd great grandaughter of Great John Mathis, so they call her testimony hearsay or family lore. The DAR has now followed the SAR in rejecting Blackman as proof. Embarassing, as there is a local Great John Mathis DAR Chapter (unless they've renamed it now).
Unfortunately, no other direct evidence has been found. A lot of folks have looked for such evidence, and I was involved in searching some NARA microfilm documents that could have recorded it, but came up empty handed. So Great John Mathis no longer qualifies as an ancestor to gain admission to the SAR or DAR.
Personally, I accept Leah Blackman's statements as quite credible, and believe them. She mentions it several times, in several contexts. In discussing the genealogy of the Mathis family, she states:
"During the Revolutionary War he loaned the Government a considerable sum of money; but when pay day came the Government had nothing to pay with except Continental paper, which was next to no pay. The lender was compelled to take large packages of the worthless scrip, which was preserved in the Mathis family for some generations, but at this time it is nearly all destroyed. The war proved a ruinous thing to John Mathis' money affairs, but did not interfere with his extensive real estate." -Blackman, p. 310.
This could imply that she had seen it first hand, and even if not, it seems to confirm that many folks in her family had seen it, some of them posessing it.
In any case, I believe Leah. There is a large percentage of accepted "history facts" that firmly rest on far less "evidence"!