Matthew Rabun was born in Virginia in about 1744. A resident of Halifax County, North Carolina, Rabun owned enslaved people. In about 1765 one of Rabun's enslaved people, a woman named Rose, was found guilty of burning down a barn. During the American Revolution, Rabun served as a commissioner for the Patriot cause in Halifax. After the war, Rabun moved to Hancock County, Georgia, where he died on May 19, 1819.