[2] Located on the Middle Peninsula, Mathews County is included in the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC Metropolitan Statistical Area.

General Lewis' forces bombarded Gwynn's Island from Fort Cricket Hill.

The county was named for Brigadier General Thomas Mathews, then speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates.

During the War of 1812, British vessels anchored in Hampton Roads and raided adjacent areas.

In a lawsuit begun in 1806, Jackey Wright of Mathews County was granted her freedom from prominent landowner Holder Hudgins due to her grandmother's Native American ancestry in one of the last cases decided by Judge George Wythe, with a Virginia Supreme Court opinion by St. George Tucker.

[7] Union forces by 1862 controlled the Hampton Roads area and in July 1862 a detachment of Pennsylvania cavalry arrived at Gloucester Court House, then went to Mathews to arrest Carter B. Hudgins, but were unsuccessful.

Several other Union raids occurred beginning in September 1863, initially designed to disrupt Confederate salt works.

Several offending boats were captured, but all but one of their watermen were from Virginia's Eastern shore (across Chesapeake Bay) rather than from outside the Commonwealth.

The war also changed economic relations within the county, for farm laborers could get better paying jobs in Hampton Roads or nearby cities.

As a local insurance agent, among other jobs, she had other priorities after a hurricane and 100-year level flooding devastated Mathews County in August 1933.

[10] In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy also devastated Mathews County, and while rebuilding, officials decided to petition to have the town center declared a historic district.

Mathews County is perhaps best known for its miles of waterfront sites, as well as its prominent location on the Chesapeake Bay.

[25] The community also sponsors Mathews Market Days, featuring local artists such as P. Buckley Moss.

Gwynn's Island resident William B. Livermon Sr. appeared throughout the 1970s on television in religion segments as "The Circuit Rider".

Former Beatle John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono once owned two historic waterfront estates in Mathews.