Matthew French was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1733. At the age of 21, he married seventeen-year-old Sarah Payne who had immigrated from Ireland.

Matthew served as a private in the American Revolutionary Army under Colonel William Preston’s Battalion of Montgomery County, Virginia. The major of his company was Joseph Cloyd and the captain was Thomas Shannon. Matthew French took the Oath of Allegiance in September of 1777.

Matthew died in Giles County, Virginia, in 1814, four years after the death of his wife.