On his last voyage in 1702 Petersen himself was caught when his ship was seized by a French privateer. He and his crew were only released after paying a ransom of 8,000 Reichsthalers. In the same year, his sons Ock and John would fall in battle with a French pirate. Matthias Petersen died in 1706 on his native island Föhr. His tombstone displays a vita in Latin and a coat of arms with the goddess of fortune and a whale. Matthias Petersen had his children homeschooled by a private teacher. So his sons were able to study at a university. Clement became a preacher in Schwesing and presumably it was him who wrote the Latin text for the inscription on his father's tomb. Another son, Peter Matthiesen, studied at the Latin school of Husum and the University of Jena. He became bailiff of Eastern Föhr, Wyk auf Föhr and even Sylt at the same time. His son, also a Peter Matthiesen, later became bailiff of Eastern Föhr and bailiff in the district of Western Föhr and Amrum. By Count Struensee, a university companion, Mathiessen, Jr. was made mayor of Copenhagen in 1771. After Struensee's execution for treason he remained influential and became director of the trade and fisheries school in the then-time Danish town of Altona. From there, he helped to convey posts in the Greenland trade to many seafarers from Föhr. One great-great-grandson of Matthias Petersen, Jens Jacob Eschels from Nieblum on Föhr, became known by writing a detailed autobiography of his own exploits as a whaler and merchant captain. It is a lesser known fact that Matthias Petersen bequeathed 100 gold florins to the church which were not paid out by his heirs. After many years of quarrelling, the parish eventually decided to move Petersen's tomb, which had been installed inside the church amid great pomp 14 years prior, out into the graveyard where it still can be seen today.