This is an interview with Mr. Edward Mateer at his home at 16 Oak St., Westfield, NY. The date is October 11, 1979 and the interview is being conducted by Georgene Gehling, representing the Chautauqua County Historical Society.
Mr. Mateer, would you tell me a bit about your family background?
My paternal grandparents were Robert McKee Mateer, born in 1831 at Ballynahinch, North Ireland, the son of Joseph Mateer and Margaret Reid. They had seven children. Jane Cosgrove [grandmother], born 1829 at Westfield, New York, the daughter of John Cosgrove born 1808, and Sarah Nesbet, born 1806 at Portaferry, North Ireland.
My grandparents were the parents of four children, one boy and three girls, of which my father was the eldest. Two of the girls died in their early years. Grandfather came to America in 1852, became a citizen September 1854, and went to California February 1855, by ship via the isthmus of Panama. He stayed one year and seven months, was taken ill, and returned to Westfield. Married Jane Cosgrove November 13, 1856. On February 4, 1863 he bought the property at 101 West Main Sreet from Robert T. White for the sum of $800. It was 1.76 acres and a small brick house. The brick house was taken down and some of the bricks were used to build part of the basement wall of the new house. The house that is still standing at 101 West Main is essentially as grandfather built it. He was in the meat business with his brother-in-law Jim Taylor. He also had two grape vineyards in his latter years. At one time he had charge of the office for E. A. Skinner, treasurer of the Royal Arcanum. He was active in the Presbyterian Church and served as elder and church clerk, also secretary of the school board. He made a return trip to Ireland in his later years to visit his family.
My maternal grandparents were James Orville Guild, born in 1828 at Hume, New York and Mary Foster, born 1832 at Huntington, Pennsylvania. They were parents of six children. Their known homesites were Brockport, New York, Titusville, Pennsylvania, and Westfield, New York. Grandfather was the seventh generation of the Guild family from a John Guild, born 1616 in England, who had come to America with his sister. In 1836 he came to Westfield, and he had a home in Titusville, Pennsylvania where he was interested in lumbering. In Westfield he apparently was interested in farmland. Beside the land adjacent to the old brick house on the north side of the main road, he purchased all the land from the main road to the plank road on the south side of the road, extending from the fork of the road on the east to the creek on the west. The house was divided into two living quarters, the large one to the east for the owner, and the smaller to the west for the farm tenant. The house was originally a tavern, called Drover's Inn in the days of the stagecoach. Grandfather bought the property from a Mr. Wright. In the basement is a large sunken area built supposedly by Mr. Wright for a bathing room, as he was a very large man. On the south side of the road was a large L-shaped barn building, one long side parallel to the road.
My parents were Joseph Melancthon Mateer, born in Westfield October 17, 1857, and died May 25, 1953. Annie Haskins Guild, born at Brockport, New York, November 8, 1865, died September 26, 1938. They had three children: Robert Guild Mateer, born May 23, 1892; Alice Marion, born January 6, 1895, died July 28, 1963; Edward Wellington, August 8, 1897. My father bought the present property at 16 Oak Street on February 26, 1894, from Hannah Hatch for the sum of $1025, consisting of a small plot and a small 1 1/2 wood frame house with a small barn framed with huge logs, and vertical unpainted board siding. The house and later the barn were enlarged to its present size in 1896. The whole property was left to Edward Mateer at the death of my father in 1953 and has been completely remodelled and redecorated during the following ten years.
My father was a junior partner with Mr. Flagler in a dry goods business for a short time.
Was that on Main St.?
Pardon?
Was that on Main St.? The business?
Yes.
Then headed the office of E. A. Skinner, general trader for the Royal Arcanum, a fraternal organization. On the death of Mr. Skinner, our family moved to St. Louis in 1911 when the Arcanum office was moved there under the new treasurer A. S. Robinson. My father retained ownership to all his Westfield property, and the family returned to Westfield in the summer of 1920. He occupied his later years with his grape farm. He was a lifelong member of the Presbyterian church and had served as elder, though throughout his lifetime he attended the following expositions: Centennial at Philadelphia in 1876, World's Fair at Chicago 1892, Pan American at Buffalo 1901, New York - 1933.
Life as I remember from my earliest recollections would cover the years 1901 to 1911 in Westfield. My earliest was our family visit to the Pan-American Fair at Buffalo at the age of four: the lighting of the electric tower, the miniature trains, and passing through the turnstiles (I was always carried), and the reenactment of the Johnstown flood. In the evening going to my Aunt Belle's house in Buffalo.
Life in these times were very simple, each family was self-sufficent as a unit. All able-bodied persons worked at whatever was required for the family independence. Roads and sidewalks were dirt except in the business area. The walks were made of natural stone slabs and the street was paved with cobblestones next to the sidewalks where horses were hitched to iron posts or rails. The center of the road was dirt. Quite a number of private walks also had dressed squares of sandstone walks and stepping stones with iron hitching posts. Townspeople all walked and became acquainted by sight, in the whole community of course. Country folks drove into town with their teams for supplies.
In 1904 my mother was given a pass from her brother for a trip on a lake freighter. As my sister and I were too young, we were left behind under the care of our grandparents, but on the second trip in 1907, we all went together. The name of the boat was the H. B. Hawgood, a ship about 400 feet long with a raised structure at the bow for command personnel and captain, plus a small quarter for a small passenger group. The pilot house and bridge were conspicuously on top. At the stern end of the ship was the crew quarters, dining area, and the engine room. In the middle were a long series of hatches with covers securely clamped on. In good weather to walk from the bow to the stern of the ship, the steel deck between the ends of the hatches and the side rail was used, but there were a few stormy days when we were required to walk up and down over the hatches in the center of the ship, holding on to a lifeline fastened to a slip ring onto a steel cable stretched from bow to stern. The boat was docked near the steel mills at Lackawanna, and we were guided there through the railyards to the side of the ship, and boarded it from a ladder against the side. The ore boats take the shortest line to their destination and they trail an instrument on a line from the stern of the ship to check the distance travelled. So we were usually out of sight of land, but as we did pass other boats which were interesting to watch. I recall seeing whaleback boats as well as freighters similar to the design of the Hawgood.
One morning on Lake Erie when we looked at the deck it looked like a green lawn. Millions of lake flies had come in the night and settled on the ship. They had to be hosed off. Passing through the Detroit River, the mail boat came alongside for an exchange of mail. Coming into Lake Huron, the ship touched into a sand bar and was grounded for awhile. One passing ship offered assistance, but the captain refused and worked the ship free from the bar himself in a short time. Going through the locks at Sault St. Marie was an interesting experience, as the ship was lifted to a higher level. Then on to Superior, Wisconsin and the ore docks. We visited Superior. To do so required considerable climbing on the dock, then a long walk to the shore. It was early in the morning and no one was visible on the streets. It had the appearance of a dead community as it was a dark and cloudy day. One unusual sight was the public water wells where people would come with their pails for their water supply. When we got to Duluth it had brightened and we saw the usual activity of a small city. Duluth is built on a ridge, and to get to the higher ground, there was a cog railway.
On the return trip, we left Duluth in a storm of strong wind as the ship cut into the waves. There was an intermittent booming vibration throughout the bow of the ship. The spray would cascade over the deck house. The captain told us he had changed course a little to lessen the impact of the waves. The ship was freshly painted and in first class condition, but I noticed across the deck at the bow of the ship was a worn path where the paint had been worn down to the steel deck, where a lookout had been walking back and forth during the course of the trip, stationed there at night and on foggy days. On the return trip the captain was directed to sail into Escanaba, Michigan on Lake Michigan, awaiting for orders to go to Chicago. But further direction ordered the ship back to Buffalo. This time the tug captain invited us to return across Buffalo Harbor to the foot of Main Street, and we accepted.
Mr. Mateer, what was the neighborhood like on this side of Chautauqua Creek?
There was a sprinkling throughout the village of earlier homes of outstanding size and design. Many are still standing. These were built by settlers who had come in from New England and had brought wealth with them, and who had the skills in professional trade or manufacturing practices to be leaders in the community. In these years there had already been the predominant German settlement on Oak and Chesnut Streets. There was an active German Lutheran Church on Chesnut Street, which has become the property of the Westfield Firemen as a social meeting place. The Italian immigrants were also a secondary group of early citizens, and they established homes probably centering in the general area of Jefferson and Pearl Streets. These people were the labor force on the railroad, street car lines, and heavy industry. The German families were very industrious. ...to farming, locating in the most desirable property.
The names of the families residing in the Oak and Chesnut Main Street area at this period is as follows: the older families, Nixon, Mateer, Johnson, Scott, Shaw, Bemis, Anderson, Koford, Harris, Harper, Greensleet, Reid, Davis, Putnam, Page, Eberly, Jones, Thompson, McKale, Murphy. The German families were Oldenburgh, Wannenwitch, Winkleman, Merker, Phiel, Ossman, Miller, Sack, Haase, Schrader, Groat, Swagger.
One of the early buildings on the west side of town was a Methodist meeting house on Main Street just about 100 feet east of Chesnut Street on the main road. When it was built it was on level ground, but when the old iron arch bridge was built, the main road was straightened and lowered several feet, leaving the church building standing well above the street level. It was a high square block of a building, unpainted and in disrepair, as I remember it, and occupied by a tenant family. There were five other houses in the early period that were a more pretension in design and cost. The Nixon house, frame house, 119 West Main St.; the large brick house at 118 West Main; the frame house at 90 West Main, and at 101 West Main; and at 8 Oak Street. Most of the houses were 1 1/2 story frame dwellings in a simple style, although in many cases some of the earliest buildings.
Mr. Mateer, would you tell me a bit about your own home and the homestead here?
Yes. Our home in this period had just been enlarged and rebuilt. It now had central heating, plumbing, water, electricity. The basement was inadequate. Electric power was only on in daylight hours and the carbon filament lamps gave a feeble light. The water was not filtered and became discolored and tasted of chlorine when the reservoir was flooded with heavy rainwater. Dr. Welch drilled for natural gas wells in the village area and found enough gas to supply those who were interested. The best heater was the kitchen cook stove. The earliest stove had a built in water jacket for hot water. Typical of these times, we had in our yard two apple trees and one plum, a vegetable garden, and a flock of chickens, and a barn which in later days developed to keep a cow and a horse for driving. The cow furnished our milk with some to spare which was sold to neighbors for 5 cents a quart, delivered in their own containers. I was the delivery boy, and summers led the cow to pasture about a mile outside of the village.
This was also a transition period. A few automobiles were occurring, and also the moving pictures, the first in the Bemus building on Elm Street, movable chairs on a level floor, admission 5 cents. The old steam rail line to Jamestown, on the east side of Chautauqua lake, on the Chautauqua connection line on the west side of the lake, Westfield became therefore a more important stop on the Lake Shore and Nickel Plate roads. In these days the Lake Shore road had a morning and evening train called the "accommodation" between Erie and Buffalo, and made it possible to travel to Buffalo in the morning for shopping or business, and return home in the evening. In my memory, the cars had open vestibules and passengers did not go from car to car when the train was moving. The conductors wore white vests, their watch chains were conspicuous across their uniforms as they tried to keep on schedule by checking with their watches. The railroad station at Buffalo was a low, wooden structure on Exchange Street near lower Main Street. The station at Westfield was not the present brick structure but one about half its size made of wood.
In our early school days there were no school buses. We walked. I do not remember but there must have been many days of absence for bad weather and conditions or sickness. I remember the school days for incidents, but I have no remembrance of learning anything. You are put in contact with knowledge, and facts and figures, and you absorb what seems interesting or usable at the time, but your complete education is a combination of your own discipline from your fathar and mother and the everyday experiences that befall you. My mother had the most influence because it made me feel better to please her. Dad was strict but stood by for my mother's influence. My grandfather Robert Mateer set our church affiliation, as he was a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, so that was what we turned out to be. It had a strong effect on my life and it more or less has been a guide. However, for many years of late the original members, all the Scotch-Irish descent in the local church has been so diluted by other people of different backgrounds that all that is left is the word Presbyterian. This is not the case in all Presbyterian churches.
Today's young people have kept me out of a lot of trouble. There wasn't any trouble in those days like there is today because out here in the country we don't see it to the extent it is in the cities, where you have such large groups of people not being like the earlier people, especially the colored people as they've been brought in and exploited in a way by the white people. Entirely different from the other groups I'm talking about here, the Germans, the Italians. Scotch-Irish.
Now during your childhood, what did you do for fun and for entertainment?
I recall going to gatherings held in the auditorium on the fourth floor of the grade school building. There was also the annual showing of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was proceeded by a parade of the cast and bloodhounds and given at Virginia Hall, that's on the corner block at Main and North Portage Street. The second floor was the main floor of the theater, which was level. The third floor was the balcony, a level shelf on three sides of the auditorium. Other melodramatic plays were shown there from time to time. Home talent minstrel shows that I liked the best were also given. I also recall a religious meeting held there with all the churches participating. Circuses visited Westfield summers and located in the area now used for the Welch parking lot. I also recall a merry-go-round set up where the present theater is located. Also a hot-air balloon ascension took place from Kent Street, about where the Baptist parsonage is located. When the empty canvas came down, it landed a short distance from a farmer's team and wagon, waiting on Embankment Avenue, and frightened the team of horses. Summer street fairs were a common occurrence, showing of livestock, horses and animals that were judged and prizes awarded.
Were they right on the Main Street?
Yes. Were sometimes in the park. Stunts such as tining a villager and putting a harness on a team of horses, catching a greased pig or climbing a greased pole were some of the attractions. There was apt to be a water contest between groups of firemen, also a tug-of-war. In this time period there was a display on the lake at Barcelona commerating the naval battle on Lake Erie by Perry. At this particular event, there was an encampment of gypsies on the old Gale Street road, now cut off by the New York Thruway. At this time a Chautauqua attraction railway had been extended to Barcelona, and stopped at the top of the a grade going to the Crescent Beach area.
Church picnics were also an annual affair. I recall going to a picnic ground on the west side of Chautauqua Lake, also to one at Northeast on Lake Erie and another at Point Gratoit at Dunkirk, all of which were dependent on the trolley for transportation. My earliest memory was a picnic at Bourne's Beach, east of Westfield, where transportation was by teams of horses and hay wagons by farmers.
Still after the high bridge was built, I recall a church affair put on by the Methodist church where a number of homes throughout the village were decorated in the manner of different countries, and people were transported through the evening on a tour of these different countries. This was after 1908. I remember taking the tour and riding in the automobile with Dr. Welch driving. The car was entirely open to the weather. One cross seat at the front for the driver and passenger, and two longitudinal seats facing an aisle in the center. You entered the car from a rear step. Dr. Welch's home on Main Street and Cottage was Egypt[?]. The home, now the property of the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Pearl Street, was Ireland with the Blarney Stone, shamrock and decorated in green. The home of Edgar Welch was also with others on the tour, but my memory fails me as to what countries they represented.
Mr. Mateer, what do you remember of the mills?
In the later years of the nineteenth century, most farms had orchards of apple trees. Both my grandfathers had them. My grandfather Mateer had an orchard near his home in the village. They were old trees at this particular time. They were different varieties: Russet, Northern Spy, green apples and red, yellow sweet and names that I cannot remember. At this time there were two cider mills, one located on Oak Street next to the Nickel Plate railroad, the other on Gale Street on the west side somewhere about 300 feet from Main Street. The grist mill on Water Street, with its mill pond and dam, visible from the old iron bridge, was the only mill in operation at this time. The other mills were in operation back in my grandfather's and father's time. I do have a remembrance of the ruins of one end of a wooden dam and remains of stone foundation of a mill site by the north side of the flat land opposite Terrace Street. This was the tannery. Across the creek on the next flat, there was evidence of layers of discarded waste tin stock where they manufactured tinware. It was also the location of a lock factory. From information passed to me from my father, there was also a woolen mill, a brewery, but I do not know their location. Certainly there must have been also a sawmill. Water power was the energy source in these times. Every mill required a dam and mill pond with a water wheel. The next source of energy was the steam engine, and then the electric power of today.
You were telling me that Mr. Davis owned one of the cider mills?
Yes, he lived across the street from us on Oak Street, and his mill was down at the foot of Oak, right next to the Nickel Plate railroad, on the east side. And I recall every fall he made us cider, and it wasn't..., I didn't care for cider too much after I saw his mill, because he took every apple that was an apple to make it, while we had our own cider press here at home and we had select apples that we used for our cider, but he made it mostly for the, I don't think they called them taverns, but they were the saloons in those days. And I recall going to town with him on his old wagon with the barrels of cider, delivering the cider to these places.
Can I just ask you one more question? How late were they still running? Do you remember what the final years were?
I couldn't give you a definite time on that.
Could you give me about?
It was within that period, more likely it was ...1905 or 6, to maybe 1910, in there somewhere.
The pulley works, located on Main and Water Streets, was the next step away from water power, as the steam engine became the new power source. The pulley works was completely destroyed by fire one night. When the wind is in the west, all fire whistles and bells are faintly heard where we are located, and in the morning we were shocked to see that the building had completely disappeared.
The products coming from local industry was no doubt quite limited and served the requirements of the people in this general area. Transportation to distant places was not possible. All imports from outside was by boat through Barcelona harbor. When the railroads were built and highways and roads became usable through bridge construction and grading, the mill era disappeared. There was a wooden bridge crossing Chautauqua Creek in the general vicinity of the first arched iron bridge. The story that I was told was that it collapsed under the weight of a flock of sheep. The iron bridge had a sign attached to tell people that there was a $5.00 penalty for riding or driving on the bridge faster than they walked. As a boy I crawled over the lower arch, but the higher arch was too much for me.
My mother's family's background was through the Guild family, an immigrant from England coming with his sister going to America. My father's family, poor and fleeing from overcrowded Ireland into a new world, each person found his own level in society and accepted it without any real feeling of class level. Hardy settlers came searching for a new home, many from eastern New York and New England. Some moved up from Pennsylvania. They are the first settlers that came: the Scotch-Irish, the Germans, and later the Italians, all now pretty well assimilated with a common incentive and interest in community affairs.
Our move to St. Lewis in 1911 was an abrupt turnaround. It was good for all of us and it makes a stepping up from childhood into a much larger world, although St. Louis at that time was a slow-moving big town. My father took my sister and I out first to enroll for the school year in September 1911. My mother stayed behind to complete the packing and so forth. My brother, who was 19 at the time, remained behind to live with Grandmother Mateer, who was living alone. During the years we lived in St. Louis, I made several return trips to Westfield during the summer to spend the summer vacation with my brother.
On two occasions my uncle took me on a fishing vacation in the Adirondack Mountains. The first time we went by train to Utica, then to Watertown and Lowville, New York, then into the mountains on foot. The second trip was made by motor car--my uncle's new Veely[?] that he was very proud of. Travelling in those days in an open car was a very tiring experience.
On August 8, 1918 I became 21 years old, and subject to the draft in World War I. I was in Westfield at the time and reported to the local draft board. I requested a release so that I could return to the university to join the ROTC unit, and at the same time complete my education at the school of architecture. The board gave their approval and I returned to school and enrolled in the army. At this time my sister came home from Cleveland to see us before she left for France, as a dietitian in a nurses' contingent from the Cleveland General Hospital where she was working. The war was soon over. On November 11 the armistice was announced. All the bells and whistles in St. Louis were sounded and I was immediately discharged as my induction papers were still in process. Everything was disrupted by the war and my education was not excepted. My sister survived and fell in love with Lt. Harry Peterson while in France. The following summer, 1919, they came to Westfield and were married at 101 West Main Street.
My schooling in Westfield took me through the grade classes to high school. I was sent back one year adjusting to our move to St. Louis, then entered Saldan high school and graduated four years later. I excelled in drafting and mathematics. My hardest subject was English. My drawing teacher was an alumnus of Washington University and through his encouragement I entered the school of architecture in 1916 and graduated in 1920. This was a depressed period in business and I returned to Westfield. My parents had returned in the spring. I came back in the fall. During the summer I had worked in the office of professor Ferrand and Fitch. During 1920 and 1921 a mild depression was taking place. I went to New York City and visited my sister in New Jersey, looking for work. The same year I returned to St. Louis but could not find any opening in architecture. I returned to Westfield and finally found an opening in Buffalo and continued working there for 12 years in various architectural offices. In the 12 years I had to forgo any vacations because when one office got low on work I hired out to another architect and continued the process for 12 years. As the 1929 market collapse deepened, my last few months were spent in the Buffalo planing mill, where I made drawings for the owner on a special interior for his summer home at Fort Erie, and made layout drawings for panelling in the new city hall in Buffalo. I returned this time to Westfield helping out at home and in the grape farm. Then in December 1935 I received a call from Ajax Company in Westfield to help them on a new product they were making. They said they needed some drawings and it would be for about two weeks. Subsequently I have worked at Ajax until my retirement in July 1962. After a one year vacation I returned for five more years as a consultant, finally retiring July 1968.
I am not acquainted with education as it is presently conducted in our public schools but I see the product in our young people. They reflect the same image of the adult citizens of today. Children grow up too fast and are exposed to knowledge beyond their capacity to cope. In my view the parents are at fault principally for the discipline of their own children, but where broken homes occur the children are often difficult to control. In my youth, in both grade and high schools, there never was any evidence of any misbehaving on the part of the students. The principal and teachers were all respected and obeyed. Some teachers had a higher rating than others in your estimation, but their authority was never questioned.
Thank you very much.