William Matthews (ca. 1771–1854), clergyman and educator, was born in Charles County, Maryland. He was educated overseas at the English Academy, a Jesuit school in Liège, and Georgetown College (later Georgetown University). Ordination into the Catholic priesthood in 1800 reportedly made Matthews the first native-born American to be ordained in the United States. He taught at Georgetown College and in 1804 was appointed rector of Saint Patrick’s Church in Washington, a position he held until his death. Under his guidance the church expanded considerably. Between 1808 and 1810 Matthews was president of Georgetown College, and he later held the same office at the short-lived Washington Catholic Seminary. In 1809 Matthews unsuccessfully sought a financial contribution from TJ for a new building for Saint Patrick’s. Active in many aspects of Washington society, Matthews served as a trustee of the city’s public schools for thirty years beginning in 1813, helped to found a female orphanage, and served as director and president of the Washington Library Company. He was vicar-general apostolic and administrator of the Diocese of Philadelphia while its bishop was in Europe, 1828–29. Matthews owned two slaves in 1820 and one a decade later, and in 1850 his real estate was valued at $13,400. He died in Washington (William W. Warner, At Peace with All Their Neighbors: Catholics and Catholicism in the National Capital 1787–1860 [1994], 102–7, 149; John Gilmary Shea, Memorial of the First Centenary of Georgetown College, D. C., comprising a History of Georgetown University [1891], 36–7; Matthews to TJ, 3 Mar. 1809 [ViW: TC-JP]; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 29 July 1813, 10 Apr. 1819, 31 Aug. 1824, 28 May 1828; “Letters from the Archiepiscopal Archives at Baltimore. 1780–1814,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 20 [1909]: 251; DNA: RG 29, CS, D.C., Washington, 1820, 1830, 1850; Washington Sentinel, 2 May 1854).