May have been born in Ireland. Matthew Locke was a member of provincial congresses, representative over a long period of time in the state legislature, active patriot in the Revolution and member of the national congress for three terms. The Brandons and the Lockes lived in the Thyatira neighborhood. The Matthew Locke home stood on the road between Salisbury and Concord about 5 miles So. of Salisbury. He cultivated the soil and won a considerable amount
of prosperity sufficient to maintain a wife and 13 children. He also succeeded in marine transportation. He was chiefly concerned in the transportation of shiploads of emigrants from the old country to the American colonies. He was engaged in overland trade, the transportation of goods of all sorts. He ran a line of wagons of the sort known in Pennsylvania and all over the country as Conestoga wagons-- between Salisbury and Salem to Charleston, S. C. He was
engaged in this enterprise with his brother Francis. Matthew Locke was a sturdy Democrat and a champion of the rights of the people. Was a representative of Rowan Co. in the assembly. From 1770-75 he as a member from Rowan in the Colonial assembly. In 1775 he was a delegate to the provincial congress at Hillsboro, to the Halifax convention in April, 1776 and to the Fayetteville convention in Nov., 1776. From 1777-80 he represented Rowan in the House of Commons. from 1781-82 in the Senate, from 1783-85 and from 1789-92 in the House of Commons. He was a member of the constitutional convention at Fayetteville in 1788; and a member of the convention the
following year. During the Revolution Matthew Locke labored patriotically for American Independence. He was appointed to the Office of Brigadier General of North Carolina troops. In 10-18-1775 he was appointed paymaster of the troops in the District of Salisbury as well as the Minute Men. He served in the National Congress from Mar. 4, 1793-99. He was a prominent vestryman of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Salisbury. He favored giving the right of ministers of all denominations to perform the ceremony of marriage.
He was a champion of education in the higher branches, supported the bill for founding and endowing Queen's museum or college at Charlotte and actively supported the bill to establish a state university. In 1774 he introduced the bill for the establishment of inferior courts of pleas and quarter sessions and the division
of the state into six judicial districts. He favored abolition of property qualifications for suffrage and office-holding; standing out strongly for unqualified manhood suffrage and thus anticipating this reform by almost a century.