By Jennifer Hubbard

For the Salisbury Post

If you’ve passed through Locke Township, you may have noticed the historical marker near the intersection of Mooresville Highway and White Road:

“Matthew Locke. Brigadier-General in the American Revolution. Member of the Provincial Congress. U.S. Congress 1793-99. Grave 1/4 mi. N.”

And if you’ve passed through the Rowan Museum’s Utzman-Chambers House on South Jackson Street, you may have seen the portraits of an elegant man and woman gazing at you in a friendly sort of way.

Museum Executive Director Aaron Kepley double-checked the early donation record, which clearly states the portraits are of Matthew Locke and his first wife, Mary Brandon Locke.

As a way to highlight the museum’s 65th anniversary, the museum board decided to organize a program about these portraits. Both Kepley and board member Betty Mickle did a little research and, fascinated by Locke’s story, they turned the assignment over to historian Gary Freeze, professor of American history at Catawba College.

I was one of the sell-out crowd gathered at Rowan Museum last Thursday evening to hear Freeze impart the details of his investigation. He is a favorite lecturer of mine, and I was curious to know more about this husband and wife who looked as if they belonged in a Jane Austen novel.

Born in 1730, Matthew Locke was an extensive landowner in Rowan County, a place he loved and served well.

Generous with his time and money, Locke (who died in 1801 at the age of 71) is memorialized in the cemetery of Thyatira Presbyterian Church with an original tombstone featuring engravings of both the sun and a moon, which I believe express his magnanimous, light-giving nature.

My favorite description of Locke sits in stone below the moon and sun: “a tender husband, an affectionate parent, an indulgent master, benevolent to the poor.”

Freeze told us that Locke walked through life as a “foe of every form of oppression, fraud  or peculation.” (I had to look that last word up — embezzlement.)

A promoter of Jeffersonian democracy, Locke was known in national political circles as “the honest farmer,” serving two terms in the House of Representatives.

He tried for a third term but was defeated by Archibald Henderson, “the professional gentleman,” a Federalist lawyer whose office still stands at West Fisher and South Church streets.

Freeze noted here that the rift between Rowan County and the city of Salisbury apparently goes way back.

So when Freeze turned his expert eyes on the portraits, doubts surfaced.

The paintings present a handsome man and a well-to-do woman in the primes of their lives. Born in 1730, wouldn’t the prime of Matthew Locke’s life have been around 1760 to 1770? Wouldn’t the clothing of the man and woman have been more Georgian than Regency?

While Betty Mickle was preparing the tables for the 117 guests, Freeze appeared to deliver the bad news/good news: the faces in the portraits are not of Matthew and Mary Locke. They belong instead to Matthew’s grandson, Moses Alexander Locke, “a man of capital,” and his wife, Mary Beard Locke, who lived their lives in an estate on the banks of the Yadkin River.

At first, Mickle said she was dismayed, although she “quickly realized this research is really an essential part of Rowan Museum’s mission, presenting accurate information that connects the present to the past.”

The portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Moses Locke are now returned to their rightful places, he in the parlor and she in the dining room, of the Utzman-Chambers House.

For a good look at them, stop by Rowan Museum at 202 N. Main St. or make an appointment at 704-633-5946. Other public events featuring the couple will be posted on the museum’s Facebook page and website.

Jennifer Hubbard works at Rowan Public Library and as Jenny Hubbard is an award-winning author of several books.