[Welland Telegraph September 17, 1903]
Immediately after buying a ticket at the Michigan Central depot last Friday evening about five o’clock, Mrs. E. McMahon dropped dead. Mrs. McMahon had been visiting her niece, Mrs. Arrowsmith of Stamford for about a month, and was about to return to her home in Boston. She had received her ticket and was walking across the floor towards Mrs. Arrowsmith when she collapsed. Drs McGarry and Walker were immediately summoned but nothing could be done, death came instantly. heart failure being the cause, brought on probably by the excitement of leaving. Mrs. McMahon was 67 years of and had enjoyed the best of health for the last two or three weeks. A son who resides in Detroit was telegraphed for and arrived Saturday afternoon. Undertaker Morse took charge of the body. The remains were afterwards taken to Somerville, a suburb of Boston for interment.
[Welland Tribune October 12, 1943]
Services were held yesterday for the late Ada Diver Born, wife of Thomas O. Born, 107 West Main street, who passed away Saturday at the Welland County General hospital in her 52nd year. The funeral, which was largely attended by relatives and neighbors, was held from the Sutherland-Thorpe funeral home, 152 Hellems avenue to Woodlawn cemetery for interment. Rev. A,J. Thomson, curate of Holy Trinity church, conducted the service and Mrs. H.B. McIntyre officiated at the organ.
The pallbearers were Clarence Ort, Joseph Thomas, Thomas Grant, John Fuller, Tony Mate and J. Brennan.
[Welland Telegraph July 3, 1903]
Elizabeth Walker, widow of the late Samuel Horner, passed away at her late residence, Stratford, Ont., on Saturday night at twelve o’clock. She had been unwell for some time, and this, together with her advanced age, made death not altogether unexpected. Deceased was born in Portadown, County of Armagh, Ireland, in the year 1819. When only twenty years of age, she in company with some relatives, came to this country settling in the United States, spending a year in the Southern States. One year after coming to this country, in 1840, she was married in New York, to the late Samuel Horner, for many years a school teacher in Niagara district, after which they moved to Brockville in Eastern Ontario. In the year 1866 her husband after a short illness passed away. Two years later, she, with her children and relatives went to Stratford, where she has since resided. Her whole life has been one of retirement, always living among flowers and plants. By her own enterprise, she had grown flower gardens and trees, where before was a vast bed of weeds.. Her late residence is now a very pretty one, adorned with ferns and flowers and surrounded with trees, all of which she herself planted and looked after. Her casket was covered with beautiful roses of her own cultivation. She was eighty-three years of age and is survived by five daughters and four sons.
The remains were taken to Brockville for burial, and were accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Homer, son and daughter of the deceased of Reed City, Mich. Mrs. J.H. Ball of this town is a daughter of the deceased.
[Welland Telegraph October 1, 1903]
The many friends of Mrs. Elizabeth Brown will regret to hear of her demise on Monday the 28th day of September, 1903, at the residence of her daughter, Mrs Walter Grenville, St Catharines. She was the widow of the late Amos Brown, who formerly lived in Thorold township near Fonthill. The deceased had been an invalid for more than twenty years, and was in the 53rd year of her age. Her remains were interred in Fonthill cemetery on Wednesday.
[Welland Telegraph May 15, 1903]
The funeral of the late Mrs Thos. White took place last Friday. The esteem in which the deceased and her family is held by the public was evidenced by the exceptionally large attendance of friends and acquaintances from Port Colborne and the surrounding country. Many were they who mourned her loss and showed heartfelt sympathy for the bereaved ones. The funeral cortege proceeded from the late residence to the Bethel church, east of the village. About sixty vehicles formed the solemn procession when it left town, and at the church as many more were waiting. Hardly more than half could find accommodation in the church. The funeral services were conducted by the Rev. Theo A.J. Huegli, the new pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran church. He preached excellent and sympathetic sermons in both English and German, and spoke words of encouragement to the family who had lost a dear mother. Many handsome and beautiful floral offerings were made by the relatives and friends of the deceased, including a large “Gates Ajar” pillow, an anchor and wreaths. The pallbearers were Messrs John Reeb, Wm. Mehlenbacher, Ed. Wegerich, J.C. Jordan, Chas Reichman and John Schneider. On Sunday evening last beautiful memorial services were conducted in Holy Trinity church by Rev. Huegli, and many who wished to attend, were unable to gain admittance. Among the relatives and friends present from a distance were ; Mr. and Mrs Albert White Stratford; Mr. and Mrs. Wm. F. White, Charles White, Henry White, Mr. and Mrs George Weikert, Mrs. Catherine Pellman, Mr and Mrs Chas. Kuehner, Mrs. George Cronmiller, Mrs. John Rasher, Mrs Ida Buchanan, Elmer White, Mrs. Dorothy White, Buffalo; Mrs. Henry Suess, Niagara Falls; Mr. and Mrs Geo. Cronmiller, Mr. and Mrs N. Reichheld, Mrs. M. Hill, Miss Cronmiller, Welland; Mrs. N. Reichheld, sr; Rainham; Mr. and Mrs N.E. Reichheld, Nelles Corners; Mr. And Mrs. C. Helts, Chas. Reichheld and daughter Ethel of Fisherville.
[Welland Tribune, 13 July 1900]
After a short but painful illness, Alice, beloved wife of John Raider, passed away at the home of her daughter, Mrs. T.H. Wells, Ellis street, Niagara Falls, on Wednesday morning, aged 49 years. Mrs. Raider leaves a husband, one daughter and many friends to mourn her loss. A short service was held at the house at 11.30 a.m., yesterday, after which the body was shipped to Niles, Mich. for interment.
BIGGEST RETAIL MERCHANT IN WORLD WAS LONG A FAILURE
[Welland Telegraph, 26 June 1917]
Frank W. Woolworth was Gawky Farm Boy-Married on $10 a week and was Reduced to $8-His First Five Stores Failed-Now Employs 50,000 People and Owns Tallest Building
Three titles to distinction are claimed for Frank W. Woolworth. First, he is the largest retail merchant in the world. Second, he owns the tallest building (and one of the handsomest) in the world. Third, he was the greenest and gawkiest boy who ever came off a farm. He was such a palpable hayseed, indeed, that try as he might, no merchant at first would engage him at any price. He had to work for three months without any wages and board himself, and he was told that he ought to consider himself lucky because he did not have to pay his employer a tuition fee. For a humble beginning that must come pretty near to breaking all records.
When finally young Woolworth did find work, without wages, and after two and a half years moved on to another job at $10 a week, so complete a failure did he prove at selling goods, according to B.C. Forbes, writing in Leslie’s, that his small pay was reduced instead of increased-and the shock temporarily shattered his health. Biography probably contains no more novel experience of an American captain of industry.
It was in 1873 that young Woolworth arrived in Watertown, N.Y., with a note of introduction to the senior partner of Augsbury and Moore, dry goods merchants, but didn’t want them.
At the end of two and a half years he was getting $6 a week. Hearing of a vacancy in another store he went to apply. But when he saw how higgledy-piggledy everything was he decided to name a high salary, thinking to be turned down. He asked $10 a week and was astonished when the proprietor said,: “All right, when will you commence?” He took the job, and on this big salary he felt justified in getting married. After a couple of months, the proprietor met him in the basement one day and unceremoniously told him there were boys getting $6 a week who sold more goods than he sold, and that they could not continue to pay him $10 a week. So his pay was cut to $8 a week-and he a married man.
“This was a terrible blow, and under it my health gave way. For a year I was at home unable to do a stroke of work. I became convinced that I was not fitted for mercantile life. Eventually my former employers offered me $10 a week to come back and tone up the store. I remained with them two years until I opened up my first five-cent store at Utica, N.Y., on February 22, 1879.”
We read that, less than two years after the pioneer five-and-ten-cent store idea was inaugurated, its author finding himself worth $2,000, “which looked bigger to him then, than $20,000,000 would now,” and in need of a vacation, revisited Watertown and “was received like a conquering hero.”
Incidentally three out of the first five stores opened by Woolworth proved failures. In fact it was not until he opened a five-and-ten-cent store in New York in 1886, and again lost his health through overwork, that he began to see success written in big letters. Since his first breakdown his health had never recovered fully and at the time, we read, he was running his New York office single-handed, with the result that he was stricken with typhoid fever and for eight weeks was unable to attend to business.
Today-thirty years later-the business boasts a store in every town of eight thousand population or more in the United States, has a daily average of over two and a quarter million customers and gives employment to between forty and fifty thousand people. It has become a $65,000,000 organization whose most colossal advertisement, if not monument, is the sixty story New York skyscraper for which the erstwhile Watertown “failure” paid $14,000,000 in cash. His somewhat Napoleonic ambition, we read, is “to open a store in every civilized town throughout the world.”
By Eva Elliot Tolan
[There are many such articles by this historian in the Niagara Falls Library, digital collection, but this one that I found in my mother’s file is not there, circa 1950s’. Margaret Gonder, wife of first Welland citizen David Price, is my ancestral grandmother.]
Last week we had the privilege of visiting one of the very few old homes still remaining in the Niagara district. This was the old Gonder house on the Upper Niagara River, now the home of Mr. and Mrs. J.A. McTaggart.
Michael Gonder, the original owner and builder of this fine old house, was a Loyalist from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He had tried to remain neutral during the War of the Revolution, but was so persecuted by the rebels, even to the extent of having his buildings burned, that he finally decided to migrate to Canada.
Michael’s wife, Eva Snyder, sometimes referred to as “Rebecca,” refused to leave her Pennsylvania home, so she and her husband divided their four children between them, she keeping the two fair ones and he bringing the two dark-complexioned ones to Canada with him-these were Margaret and Jacob.
The Gonders stayed for a while at Niagara, (Niagara-on-the-Lake) waiting to buy a suitable piece of land. John Rowe, a resident of Stamford Township and former soldier in Butler’s Rangers, had received as part of his land grant, Lot 6 on the broken front of the Upper Niagara River, opposite Grand Island. This Michael Gonder purchased. He was classed as a “later” or “treasuery “Loyalist, because he purchased his land, instead of receiving it as a reward for military services, as did the original United Empire Loyalists. The later Loyalists, however, were also required to take the oath of allegiance to the British Crown before being given their deeds to their land.
On his land on the Upper Niagara River, Michael Gonder built what in those days was a very imposing dwelling in contrast to the usual log homes of the first settlers. It was built of stone, but some subsequent owner had the stones covered with stucco, this altering its appearance. The interior, too, has been altered by successive owners one of the most regrettable changes being the removal of the old fireplaces. However, in the attic and cellar may still be seen the huge hand-hewn oak timbers, marked in many places with the mark of the axe. The windows and doorways are wide and deep, indicating the thickness of the original stone walls.
At the back of the house on the second floor was the long, narrow loom room, home of that period when so much hand-weaving was done.
There were eight bedrooms in the old house, which, in early days was a favorite stopping place for immigrants and other travellers going west. The Gonder house was always open for these _.
During the latter part of the war of 1812-14 the Gonder house was used by General Drummond as his military headquarters. At one time, in later years, it was also used as a temporary barracks for soldiers stationed on the frontier.
While the Gonders were still staying at Niagara, Margaret, the daughter, had met and fallen in love with a man forty years her senior. This was David Price, an interpreter in the Indian Department. Naturally the father frowned on this affair but the couple had decided to elope at the first opportunity. Accordingly, after they were settled in their new home on the Upper Niagara River, Margaret’s father and brother went over to Grand Island to attend to some cattle they had pastured over there. A man came riding along the River Road with a white handkerchief tied around his arm. Br pre-arrangement Margaret wore a white sunbonnet as she worked outdoors in the garden, to indicate she was alone. So the couple rode away to Niagara to be married by Rev. Robert Addison of St. Mark’s Church. This was in 1800.
But as time went on all was forgiven. David price had acquired a farm on the Welland River on the site of the present city of Welland. Michael, leaving his Niagara River property to his son, Jacob Gonder, in his later years went to live with his daughter, Margaret and her husband, David Price. When death finally claimed this old pioneer he was buried in the family burying ground on the Price farm, on the banks of the Welland River.
One of the Gonder girls of a later generation married a Sherk, so in time, the Gonder farm on the Upper Niagara became known as the Sherk place, and is still known by that name today among older residents.
Three-quarters of a mile back from the river, on the Gonder farm is the old Gonder family burying ground, where many of the Gonder family were buried. One of the old-gravestones marks the last resting place of Jacob Gonder. Jacob, as a young lad, came with his father Michael to live on the Niagara River. He was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1776, and died here in 1846. Here also is the last resting place of Jacob’s son, Michael Dunn Gonder, and his wife, Mary Ann Wait. The latter was a niece of the notorious Benjamin Wait, a resident of the Short Hills area, who, for a number of others, was sentenced to die for their share in the Rebellion of 1837-38. His sentence was finally commuted and he with a number of other, was banished to the penal colony in Van Dieman’s Land, for which he escaped some years later, returning to his home and family in Canada.
[Evening Tribune, 27 March 1968]
An interesting item from Welland’s early history has come to light as the result of an item in the Tribune’s Centennial Edition printed last year. About three years ago a city employee, Albert Albano, 279 McAlpine St., was doing some excavation work for a water main break at the northeast end of Dennistoun St., just past Welland High and Vocational School when he unearthed an ancient tombstone and brought it to the city yards.
He had been working in the site of Welland’s earliest cemetery. Many years previously those who rested there has been removed to the Anglican Cemetery. He didn’t know at that time that that the tombstone was that of Welland’s first white settler, David Price.
Two years later he read an historical sketch in the Tribune about early settler and he had intended to contact the author, Mrs. E.A. Hurst of Hamilton. He finally mentioned the find last Sunday night to Crowland Township historian, James Morris, of White Pidgeon, who got in touch with descendants of that family.
The stone reads, “In memory of David Price of the Township of Crowland, who departed this life 26th February, 1841, age 91 years.”
Family members have expressed the hope that this head-stone can be placed in some place where it will add to the historical interest of the area.
PRICE HISTORY
About 1768, David Price was kidnapped by Indians of the Seneca tribe, following a massacre in which his parents and some members of his family perished.
He was adopted into the tribe and learned the ways of the Indian and when he had achieved manhood, he made his way back to the white settlements on the Niagara Frontier.
Friendly Indians took him to an excellent spot to homestead on the Chippawa and he settled close by what is known as Welland River in the area of the high school.
His knowledge of Indians and their ways made him invaluable to the government as a reward for his services he was given a crown grant for that area which is now the city of Welland.
It is believed that the original grant is now held by Barry Wade in care of the Wade Estate.
- Photoraph: Albert Albano with Mrs. Harold Gent, Beckett’s Bridge and Emanuel Hurst.
ISSUE NOT LAID TO REST YET
By Greg Dunlop
[Welland Tribune, 30 July 1986]
PELHAM-A report from the Pelham Historical Society has been unable to put the Hillside Cemetery/Dawdy Burying Ground to rest.
Last autumn the society agreed to a request from the Pelham town council to research the history of the Canboro Road Cemetery .Council had been approached by a descendent of the Dawdy clan who the Hillside Cemetery had been renamed in contravention of a 60-year old agreement and that the graveyard’s original name should be restored.
Council members decided they didn’t have enough information to base any decisions on so they asked the Historical Society to investigate the matter and try to clear up a few questions. The society’s report was ready last week and President Mary Lamb presented it to council.
Lamb said even after all their work there were still some grey areas.
“I’m surprised we haven’t been able to find more information. It’s hard to believe there isn’t someone in town who remembers where, when and why the names was changed.
The society circulated requests or anyone with information to come forward but even with the public input the facts were difficult to nail down for certain.
“The cemetery board’s records are critical but they’re not around. No one seems to know what happened to them.”
So far the society is only able to peg the name change as happening sometime in 1933. Lamb said she went through old Welland Tribune clipping to see when the graveyard was first referred to under the Hillside name.
“I went through the death notices fo all of 1933 and they referred to the Dawdy Burying Ground but the first death notice I found for that area in 1934 called it the Hillside Cemetery with Dawdy written in brackets.
She said it was unusual the change was never reported in the newspapers of the time because they use to publish much less critical information. Anything of any significance was published back then, according to Lamb.
The society never did find an agreement between the town and the cemetery trustees where the town agreed not to change the cemetery’s name after they took it over in 1926. The graveyard had been known as Dawdy’s Burial Ground from the early 1800s until 1933.
Lamb told council the society had done all it could, and unless someone else came forward with more information there was nothing more to add. Mayor Bergenstein thanked Lamb and the Historical Society for her efforts.
Council decided to give Tony Whelan, the man who brought up the whole issue, a chance to study and comment on the report before making any decision.
They requested Whelan to prepare his comments and information in written form and to present it at the next meeting of council, August 18.
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