John Mathis was a Black day laborer who lived along the Yadkin River in Surry County, North Carolina in 1916. That July, a devastating flood pushed the Yadkin beyond its banks, washing away all of the possessions of Mathis, his wife, and their four children. He seems to have not been a longtime resident of Surry County and may have been an itinerant laborer during the 1910s. No further information could be found.