McLaughlin-Bost House
(ca. 1891)
The one-time home of Matthews mayor Charles McLaughlin, the McLauglin-Bost House later became the family home of the Bost family for more than a century.
415 W John St, Matthews, NC 28105
Charlotte businessman Joseph McLaughlin had the McLauglin-Bost House constructed for his son Charles Rhyon McLaughlin (1868-1952) on one of two parcels totaling 61 acres that the younger McLaughlin purchased in the spring of 1891 for $1,245. The senior McLaughlin was an early investor in Matthews’ newly developing commercial row that had resulted from the establishment of a railroad stop by the Central Carolina Railroad in the once-isolated farming community. In 1880, Joseph McLaughlin and J.T. Barrnette of Matthews became partners in the town’s first general store, McLaughlin and Barrnette. Within four years, their store was joined by six other stores and a druggist on commercial row. Joseph built a second house using the same plan as the McLauglin-Bost House for one of his daughters. That residence, the Carpenter House, was originally located on what became the site of Matthews Elementary School but was moved across the street sometime before 1935.
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A Charlotte native who lived in Matthews for most of his life, Charles married Mary Belle Grier, the youngest child of Eli Clinton Grier. A prominent farmer and entrepreneur in the Providence township, E.C. is credited with the construction of Mecklenburg County’s first cotton spinning mill. During his lifetime, Charles was a prominent citizen and merchant in Matthews, serving as the town’s mayor from 1929 to 1941 and as a tax lister for the Morningstar township. He also donated land for the original site of the Matthews United Methodist Church (on the corner of Charles and Ames Streets) and sold an acre of land to the Morningstar Township Public School Committee for a school building for one dollar.
In 1900, the McLaughlin family sold the house and associated acreage to W. W. Alexander who in turn deeded the house and nearly twenty-eight acres to his son-in-law, farmer W.J. Bost, in 1912. Bost was married to Alexander’s daughter Maggie, who acquired the house and land the next year following Bost’s death. The house was later occupied by Ernest Harold Bost, an employee of Southern Engineering, and his wife Sallie Q. Bost, a South Carolina native who taught second grade at Matthews Elementary School. The house remained in the Bost family for the remainder of the twentieth century, passing to brothers Lloyd and Cliff Bost and later to Lloyd C. Bost Jr.