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mm ht jvjttim mtt fkx ninetysecond yearno 42 acton ontario wednesday april 19 1967 second section 188711907 stamps the public has kept me busy licking postage stamps for over 50 years and i think ill stay at the job that decision was made tome years ago it was made in response to a request that he should stand for some important elective office but the man who has seen more years of service than any oth er postmaster on the contin ent was eager for no other honor than his years of faith ful public service stork bksidfnk oijjjlatthfws esq acton wksi is cancer month o n a t e fight cancer o n a t e canvassers wiu call at every home donations may also be made at the bank of montreal or dennys insurance agency campaign chairman mrs ray arbk s534744 continents oldest postmaster was inteviewed by macleans and told how acton had grown february 22 mis sir mr james matthews postmaster of acton ont was appointed to that office in june 153 and bt served as a clerk in that office for two years before he has therefore had sixtythree years service in the acton post office sixtyone of them as postmaster mr matthews service as postmaster la probably the longest service of any postmaster in canada copy of a letter from post office department ottawa thus begins a yellowing article in macleans maga zine of december t 1922 which continued with a remin iscent interview with north americas oldest post master written by j m elson entitled licking stamp ror fifty years a check had revealed that mr mat thews topped the postmaster in the usa with the longest service silas hatch of hatchvllle mass who was appointed in 1858 and was still serving in 1922 as a subtitle for the story macleans declared in large type he was behind the post office wicket when the crimean war was fought was there when north rough south he is there today the oldest postmaster on the continent the 45yearom page waa lent to the free press by mrs anna smith james matthews recalled the past you can find him any day if you enquire at the wicket of the acton post office a man beyond 87 figure quite erect eyesight good and hear ing almost unimpaired with his coat off he was among the mall bags that hung on the long iron forms waiting to be locked and sent away to their various distributing centres there he is carrying on care less of the fact that in longe vity he is crowding the century mark and in length of service has a record unequalled in north america the dusty to mes of washington and otta wa have been searched they your daughter is throwing a giggling chattering swinging vibrating pajama party in the basement game room theyll all take showers no one will get caught cold want to know why you ve got a very efficient automatic gas water heater noone knows it a there even when a whole gang of aids decide to take showers and wash their hair and use hot water for all the countless things girls use jt for then you thank heaven for h natural gas recovers hot water sotast you can handle the whole gang because gas goes to work instantly there a no warm- up time tor a gas flame its as hot as it can possibly get the second it n so the faster the heat the faster your water heals up and that s why your gas water heater delivers hot water at such an exceptionally fast rate with a gas water heater no one gets caught cold so go ahead live it upwrthallthe hot water you can splash in you can buy or rentagas water heaterforaslfttle as 1 75amonth see your plumber dealer department store or gas company united gas with natural gs you can take hot water for grantod reveal that james matthews stands alone among postmas ters he was appointed to suc ceed his late uncle robert swan in ims the year that lord pnlmerton became priiwe minister of great brit ain and sevastopol was taken the postmaster who cornea nearest this remarkable term was found to be silas hatch of haichvillc barnstable coun ty massachusetts who was appointed in 1858 three years after mr matthews during all that long spun withltsmanyevents of- world wide importance he has gone on his way faithfully serving his community and the mirty governments that have had their glory and passed out with 67 years of unbroken devotion to duty he hos he- come an unique figure in tm branch or public activity when i came to acton with my father in 1845 said mr- matthews to the writer w settled on a farm on main st it is now you see built up with business places our fam ily had been pioneer settlers lr the flora anil guelph dis tricts they chopped some of the first trees in elora my fa ther in 1826 built the old log house in guelph that was long used by the cpr as a depot and that prior to that was tavern known as the priory- fven in acton i have seen ev ery house go up except two in those days a post office was a- simple-affalr-thcn- we- only had one mail a week now weve eight a day then there was a very small amount of money changing hands now we sell over 40000 worth of postage stamps alone every year besides all the cash that is handled in the postal sav ings bank and in post office money orders in the early days the cost of sending let ters was very high shortly after responsible government was established in canada the control of the post office was handed ovcrby the british authorities to the canadian government but pri or to that the postage rate on a letter from toronto to mon treal was 25 cents on one from the young provinces lo britain it was 1 00 of course with development and chang es the rate came down till in my boyhood it was i2s cent to send a letter to england and seven cents for one in canada when i became postmaster here in 1855 in succession to my uncle robert swan with whom i was a clerk and who named acton after his old hometown in england pos tage stamps had not come into use people wanting to send letters left the necessary mo ney and i stamped paid on the envelope after postage stamps came into use it was the custom of most people to lay down the money and leave the postmas ter to affix the stamp with the drop letter boxes this practice has almost entirely disappeared those were the days of sealing wax tamilies with crests would stamp the im pression of their crest in the wax there were few news papers published in upper canada then so that our vol ume of mall from the printing press was exceedingly smalt those who did get a weekly paper of any kind regarded it as a treasure to be read from end to end they would tell the most important news to their neigh bors who had no papers our mails then such as they were had to be taken on horseback in cutters or sleighs on wag ons or any other means of conveyance we didnt have 50- mileanhour automobiles mr matthews has lived ihrntigh epochal days he be gan his career as postmaster cluiini- the crimean war yes he said when remind ed ol the fact there have been a good many events lo look back upon the main line of the gtr from quebec lo sarnia was completed in 1856 the year after i started in this oil ice about that time ihore was a discovery of gold in the saints of the frascr and thompson rivers and there was a wild rush to the west which then seemed like n- tils- lam unknown world in imi as you know war broke out between the north mil south in the united stat es ouile a lew fellows went over from around here one of lliem mi thomas statham ol this village still draw his pension i remenflier quite ireliwtrnpttsidcnt iblneohr wis assassinated the event caused a great deal of excite ment the canadian pacific the intercolonial the canadian northern now the national anil nearly all of the other rail ways of canada have been built of course since i be came a postmaster as for pub lic events i quite well remem ber the fenian raids the red river rebellion and other dis turbances and wars these la ter happenings arc comparat ively recent lo me earlier did not disturb us so very much people were pretty busy in llnlton county in 66 digging out stumps and build ing log houses for themselves the niagara district felt the mos of that brief shock flderly cltlxens of acton when they are leaning back in their choirs like lo tell about the fast horses mr matthews used to keep the village in its younger dnys was quite n centre for horse trading nnd training the name of hansen ad- oiiih reputed lo hnleen n character inhlndafci u not- forgotten with the trading end that of the postmaster as sociated with 4he tiotllngev- ents when the subleut is mentioned the eyes of mr matthews brighten fie would be driving yef he days were it not for an accident p a few years baci when he went to visit n son indenvej prior to this nc 0oimiitcr drove trotters that carried away the first prtre nt the pan- american exposition j n buffa lo in 140 nnd second prize at a big show in detroit he ex hibited his winners at guelph milton georgetown anil many county fairs i had a span he said which i called the grey eag les there wasnt more than five pounds difference in the weight ol these grev drivers oil how they could step i could drive a hundred miles loilav and back tomorrow with them and they would come home strong on the hit i guess i got to be reason ably- well known around lor mv hollers and often when lwa4ilrivlng through llic country someone would call out to me hello matthews how are the greys perhaps the man wouldnt know me but of course theres a friend liness among horsemen even if theyre not acquainted mr matthews remarked further that he had the first huggy in acton rhd it was considered quite a tiptop the red river affair caus ed quite a stir in those days fnr we werent accustomed lo getting such a large supply of world news cverv clay lhat we souldnl digest it a rebellion in oor own country was some thing lo talk about i can tell vou i recall that major allan a fine soldier look a small con tingent from this neighbor hood i think the volunteers all came back safclv the ma jor has since passed awav the fenian raids though much its the waiting that makes a private herd sire expensively tiresome waiting until he is two years old to see what his calves will look like waiting until he is four years old to see how his heifers will develop waiting until he is six years old to see if his daughters will produce you can develop your herd and income faster with a no watting ai proven sirs bulb of all breeds with known ability are as nesr at your telephone for cata logues or further mformstien contact your local tech nician thing in those times most ol the vehicles used for trotters were homemade carts and thev were rather hom ely affairs he laughed he will also tell with great pride of an experience with hook and line some years ago when the streams that flow around guelph georgetown acton limchouse and other llalton county points were better stocked than now twenty dozen in one day but enthusiastic anglers shouldnt think of taking the next train to acton after read ing of this good luck mr matthews says the streams are pretty well depleted now and he should know for even though he is past 87 he likes as well as ever a dav with pole and line along a rambling stream we used to have fine sport around here he said with a flash of youth still in his eyes lots of deer in former days pausing he turned lo his son and asked do you remember chester that big buck i shot on the hill back of acton he was an old fellow with eight prongs on his head when we got him we found that he car ried in his body two bullets which other hunters had lodg ed there some time before but which had not proved serious away back in the 50s and 60s a man could have real sport when he went out said he we could bring in a deer or a mess of good fish almost any time to replenish the stor es of the kitchen robt r homiltm optometrist 11 snssmsin view s o 111 mm st km arromimbst t773971 no toil chargf wx