This road is named after John Gilmer Matheson, who settled at Wellsford in 1885 and occupied a block of land that includes where the road is now. His land ran approximately from what is now Batten Street, down Rodney Street to Station Road, and roughly up a line ending below the present Wellsford town water supply reservoir.
In 1891 John Matheson married Isabella Kirton and they had five daughters, but John died in 1902 aged only 39. Isabella continued to run the farm while raising a young family. In 1908 she married Philip Curry, an Australian working on the nearby railway, and they had three daughters.
The Matheson and later Curry farmhouse still stands on the corner of Matheson Road and Olympus Road, and is now the Heritage Rest Home. More than 90 years after she was born, John and Isabella’s daughter Linda was a resident in this rest home that was once her family home. There’s more of the story here.