POINT ABINO AND VICINITY

By

META SCHOOLEY LAWS

              These articles would not really be complete without some special reference to the pretty little village of Ridgeway. It would seem to owe its name to its situation on the Ridge way, or road. Until about 1870, the post office of the village was called Point Abino, and much later the G.T.R. station was Bertie.

             At the south end of the main street of the village there used to be a double curve, one, as at present to the west, the “Fort Erie Road;” the other wound in hap-hazard fashion south-easterly to the lake.

             Just at this curve was the old Disher home, whose walls covered with vines still stood well within the writer’s remembrance.

             The new house, still the home of a grand-daughter, was built on higher ground, a little north of the site of the old house.

             There were always pretty shrubs and flowers about that home.

             Ridgeway fifty years ago was never the bustling little place that its summer visitors make it, for a few months of these present years.

             But it was always a dignified, prosperous little hamlet.

             B.M. Disher, whose wife was Squire Dickout’s daughter, Eber Cutler and Joseph Zavitz were the general merchants, “Charlie” Girven was the tinsmith and built the block which is still used for a “tin shop.”

             Zach Teal had a tiny confectionery shop, though there was perhaps more talk than business within its walls. J.A. Beeshy opened a little jewelry shop about this time.

             Lambton Bowen was the harness maker. Squire Peter Learn operated a little foundry and someone had a “wagon shop.”

             John McLeod, genial and upright, was the popular landlord of the McLeod House. It was his boast that he conducted his business strictly within the law. Certainly no man of the locality was more generally respected than he.

             Charley Avery and Charlie Matthews, one at each end of the town, made the boots and shoes for nearly everyone.

             Old Dr. Walrath was still practicing then, and Dr. Brewster, a veteran of the Grand Army of the Republic, had established a practice and opened a drug store.

             Eber Cutler owned the mills, a grist mill and a saw mill and his employees lived in the little brown cottages he built.

             Cordwood was the fuel for these mills, and also in the early days for the railroad engines.

             With a fine agricultural country on three sides of it, Ridgeway bid fair to become a town. But the organization and centralization of industry closed the foundry, and practically closed the mills as well.

             There is still a little planing mill, but the big cities have drained all such places as Ridgeway of practically everything, but the memory of what was, and the speculation as to what might have been. Those lines of Longfellow aptly describe it:

“One of those little places, that have run,

Half up the hill be neath the blazing sun,

And then sat down to rest as if to say,

I climb no farther upward, come what may.”

             But in memory I sit in “our” pew in the Memorial Church, and I see them all. Rev. James Mooney, the genial Irishman whose sense of humor was so keen as to embarrass him at times, as for instance when the group of fun-loving girls presented one of the congregation with a “widow’s cap.” She just didn’t like the appearance of the contraption, and consulted Mr. Mooney as to the propriety of wearing it to church. Of course, not having seen the said cap, he assured her that it was quite proper to wear a widow’s cap to church or anywhere else. Whereupon she appeared, and her head dress could only be described as the Psalmist described the human body as being “fearfully and wonderfully made,” and the pastor found himself unable to preach in the presence of the cap and had to request the widow to retire. What legitimate excuse his ready Irish wit enabled him to give her for his request is forgotten.

             Or perhaps Rev. R.J Elliot is in the pulpit, a little man, intense and active. Both men beloved by the whole congregation they served. But like so many of those who worshipped with them, sleeping their last sleep.

             There were not so many “country people.” Most of those attended the “Baxter Appointment” on the Ridge, but the Sloan’s, J.J. Moore’s, the Brackbills, Sara Brackbill gave her life to China; Abe Sherk’s family, the Hauns, Quaker Wilsons and the Schooleys were almost sure to be there. Though as Grandma used to observe, “It was strange how much wetter the rain was on Sunday than on a week day.”

             Then the village people, the Cutlers, Squire Peter Learn, the Disher’s, Wilson’s, Mrs. Teals, Dr. Brewster.

             The M.E. Church had its congregation too, but we were “Wesleyans.” Grandmother was a member for 75 years.

             Perhaps some of the faces have forgotten, these belonged to our Social Circle, as well as to the church- perhaps that is why their faces are so clear through the mist of years.

             It must be nearly fifty years since A.H. Kilman brought his bride to Ridgeway and took charge of the school. He was a real teacher, and his memory is revered, we know, by many many of his old pupils.

             Eber Cutler had no family of his own, at least none that survived babyhood.

But beneath a stern and somewhat forbidding exterior lay the kindest heart possible.

             No one ever appealed to him for aid and was refused especially if children were in want. All one winter he fed and clothed a certain family, carrying baskets of food at night or sending his wife; for he never paraded his charity.

             In the spring he offered the “feckless” father work, but the man complained of not feeling very well and added that “The Lord had provided for his family all winter, and he hoped would continue to do so.”

             That day at dinner Eber told his wife that those folks must not be helped any more; but in a day or so went searching the cupboard with a basket in his hand.

             When Mrs. Cutler smiled and reminded him of his “threat” he said, “Yes, yes, but those poor children must not be hungry.”

             He was certainly a father to this only sister’s family, and James Morin was a protégé of his, really an adopted son, in all but name.

             A volume could be written about these people, and it would make good reading, too, though it would be only a homely story of a people who in the main “did justice and loved mercy and walked humbly with their God.”

The Welland Tribune and Telegraph

27 May 1926