We find in the Washington Republic the following list of candidates who have received permission to present themselves at the Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, on the 1st of October next, for the purpose of being examined as to their qualifications for admission into the Navy as Acting Midshipmen...Edmund O. Matthews...
-North American and United States Gazette, June 5, 1851
I was at work in my store one day during 1851 when a boy of fourteen came in waving an official looking document. The boy was my brother, Edmund Orville. The document he was exhibiting with so much pride and elation was his commission from President Millard Fillmore to enter the Naval Academy as a cadet. My father had applied for the appointment a year before but for some strange reason no acknowledgement of the letter was received and it was thought that the application had been pigeonholed for good and all. Without any warning, or preparation for the news, the commission was brought one morning from the postoffice, connecting the name Matthews forever with the Naval annals of the United States.
-Leonard Matthews, A Long Life in Review
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