Augusta County community, serving as a militia captain and de facto public officer, as well as being a member of the Augusta Parish vestry. The Mathews were among the Anglican minority in the predominantly Presbeterian county. The young George Mathews had ten siblings; six brothers and four sisters. He was "by far the crudest, most dynamic, energetic, colorful, and capable of the seven boys." He may have been educated at the local Augusta Academy, although whatever schooling he obtained, he remained illiterate throughout his life. As a boy, George Mathews played and explored in the woods around his father's farm, and quickly gained experience with frontier dangers from local Indian tribes, rebuffing raids from the Indians into the frontier settlement. Early career On his father's death, Mathews was willed of farm land By the 1762, George and a brother, Sampson Mathews, had begun a mercantile enterprise in Staunton, Virginia, and soon had acquired extensive property along the western frontier as far west as the Greenbrier district. The brothers established several outposts along this stretch, where they sold both frontier necessities and specialty goods, importing goods through Atlantic trade markets. The brothers additionally dealt in forced labor, mostly through contracts for convict servants from Ireland, but also African slaves. The brothers were among the "soul-drivers" in Virginia who bought convict servants wholesale from British transport ships at port, and traveled along established routes selling the convicts to farmers, planters, and others. Lodine-Chaffey suggests that the brothers' treatment of both convict servants and slaves was suspect, due to the frequency in which the servants and slaves escaped them; the brothers reported three slaves missing in 1769, and ten convicts missing in 1773. In total, their dealings in all ventures accounted for a "great share" of the trade in the region. Mathews was elected to the Augusta Parish vestry in 1763, joining his brother Sampson who had been a member since 1761. The brothers maintained their seats on the vestry until a shift in political population caused them to be ousted by the Presbyterian majority. The Mathews brothers were appointed trustees of Staunton in 1772. At this time, Staunton was an important trade center in the backcountry, and it along with other backcountry trade centers like Salisbury, North Carolina, contributed significantly to economic expansion in the colonies, including the development of port cities like Baltimore, Maryland, Norfolk, Virginia, and Alexandria, Virginia. This mid-18th