1 12 33 http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/5d0793b24d32758155e829de4ede63c5.jpeg 787a66d97f913f354d4a211ed7434c7e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Louis McDermott Collection Subject The topic of the resource Local history, Fort Erie and surrounding area. Description An account of the resource A collection of historical documents, photos, news clippings, letters, and writings, assembled by local historian, Louis McDermott, and donated to the Fort Erie Public Library. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Louis McDermott Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived FEPL-LH -Louis McDermott Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Included in this collection are writings, historical documents, news clippings, images, maps, and more. They were written and compiled by Louis McDermott into a series of binders. The digital collection has been scanned from these physical copies. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library and Louis McDermott Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource House on Point Abino Road, #1 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1971 Louis Mcdermott Collection point abino http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/4b1280101d99289491c6d3da3c69aadb.jpeg 452dd7cd08377242a8bb11cbba94c8ae Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Louis McDermott Collection Subject The topic of the resource Local history, Fort Erie and surrounding area. Description An account of the resource A collection of historical documents, photos, news clippings, letters, and writings, assembled by local historian, Louis McDermott, and donated to the Fort Erie Public Library. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Louis McDermott Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived FEPL-LH -Louis McDermott Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Included in this collection are writings, historical documents, news clippings, images, maps, and more. They were written and compiled by Louis McDermott into a series of binders. The digital collection has been scanned from these physical copies. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library and Louis McDermott Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource House on Point Abino Road, #2 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Undated Louis Mcdermott Collection point abino http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/50a3e65986c4559ab0d4b677d440baf7.jpeg 9258628a5373d566b247fb9fc32f0543 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Louis McDermott Collection Subject The topic of the resource Local history, Fort Erie and surrounding area. Description An account of the resource A collection of historical documents, photos, news clippings, letters, and writings, assembled by local historian, Louis McDermott, and donated to the Fort Erie Public Library. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Louis McDermott Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived FEPL-LH -Louis McDermott Language A language of the resource English Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Included in this collection are writings, historical documents, news clippings, images, maps, and more. They were written and compiled by Louis McDermott into a series of binders. The digital collection has been scanned from these physical copies. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library and Louis McDermott Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Point Abino Light House, #1 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Undated Louis Mcdermott Collection point abino http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/f73de257f241b97d0fd0884d2669ce1b.jpg f12c0e85ec978d47a6c17aa814efc935 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fort Erie Description An account of the resource Images, documents, and other items of historical significance to the town of Fort Erie. Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bertie Boating Club Finally Gains Lease Description An account of the resource Berti Boating Club, Point Abino, marked an historic and long-awaited ribbon cutting on the grounds. Pictured in the front from the left: Jay BIssonett; Clinton Doan; Ray Haggarty, MP; Center from left: Tim Everett, Bob Tripp, Bill Schwartz Centre Back Elvin Rider Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Fort Erie Times Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 26, 1979 1970s Fort Erie Times point abino ray haggarty tim everett http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/5a900866fd45d2e66260051d4b842522.jpg 06f59a10825a53fae66d9926a0936c9f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fort Erie Description An account of the resource Images, documents, and other items of historical significance to the town of Fort Erie. Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Point Abino Lighthouse #2 Description An account of the resource This light house was built in 1917 to replace a light ship. It sits on the shallows of Lake Erie. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Post Card Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Undated Fort Erie point abino Point Abino lighthouse post card undated http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/4fa002f4494685156e25328e71099cca.jpg ff290f88cf16ea2ef18cc899cac666e1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Crystal Beach Subject The topic of the resource Crystal Beach, Ontario Description An account of the resource Select historical photos and documents digitized from the Fort Erie local history and Louis McDermott collections Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived FEPL -LH - Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library and Louis McDermott Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Point Abino Description An account of the resource This aerial view of the landmark lighthouse looks east toward the Crystal Beach shoreline of Lake Erie. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Post Card Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Undated Crystal Beach Lake Erie point abino Point Abino lighthouse post card undated http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/3e21683f9bf20cfd4e4c043058f2102d.pdf 3e3fa94daf01b1bd4c49ff6e6107cf5a PDF Text Text This is Shelley Richer interviewing Mr. Harvey Holzworth in his home on Point Abino Road, September 25th, 1985. S.R: Hello Mr. Holzworth, and how are you today? H.H: Alright Shelley, it's a beautiful day today. S.R: What is your date of birth? H.H: October 3 lst, Halloween. S.R: What year? H.H: 1924. S.R: Where were you born? H.H: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but I've always lived in Buffalo. S.R: When did you come to Fort Erie? H.H: I came to Crystal Beach in 1924. My father... as I said, I was just born in Pittsburgh, but the family moved immediately to Buffalo, and dad right away decided to buy a summer home. That was, I think it was cottage #71 on the\waterfront on top of the hill at Crystal Beach. I can remember back then, when I was still a baby in a wicker baby buggy, and I know which room in the house it was, ( in the front, and I know which way I was facing in the buggy, and I could listen to the bands coming off the Crystal Beach boat, and the people, and I loved the noises of the people down on the beach. Of course, this is before there was any fence down at the beach. There used to be a... I can remember a cement walk, you know, a sidewalk like, going down in front of the homes, down on the beach. In fact, it's still ther�. If the stone washes the sand away ... it's still there, parts .of it, you know. S.R: And that's at Crystal Beach? H.H: That's right in Crystal Beach, going along the lakefront there. At that time the Canadiana and the Americana were the two boats that came in, and I remember the old ballroom when the Dance Hall... the band stand was in the middle of the Dance Hall. I remember the Royal Ballroom, which is, I . used to. . I I believe, the old Royal Hotel, and remember the Royal Ballroom, that was at the Bay Beach end of Crystal Beach, right on the beach. That building is still there. Mr. Rebstock owns it and he uses it for apartments, you know, summer apartments. That used to be the old Royal Ballroom. (1) �I ( can remember Honey Teal delivering ice to us. S.R: This is still in the first house? H.H: This is still in the first house. I can remember a ride that used to be located in the shallow water, right near the dock, and it would twirl around and the swimmers would grab a hold of it and swing out in the air and let go and splash in the water. I can remember that ride. S.R: That was at Crystal Beach right? H.H: That was all at Crystal Beach. Then in 1928 my father was sold on building... buying some property at Point Abina and building our present summer home that I live in now, in 1928, at Point Abino. Now, this house is just two doors north of the Buffalo Yacht Club, Point Abino Station. S.R: Did your father build this house himself or were there...? H.H: Oh no, he had . . . ·I think Mr. Poor built it, I believe it was Mr. Poor. I know that Logden Page built the stone wall in front of the house, and I know that Logden Page built the big stone fireplace here, and it's all a fieldstone fireplace that we have in here. Logden ( Page built that, and he built the house... he built the fireplace first. . . S.R: And then built the house around it? H.H: And then he built the house around it. Then, the fireplace is designed so in case of bad times or something, why-you could ... if somebody was living here, they could heat. If you keep a steady fire in there and heat all the stones up, and you could heat the house with radiant heat with just the heat of the stones. S.R: So it never needed a furnace then? H.H: No, but I have a furnace in it, but I mean, if things really were bad. S.R: What was the area like when you moved here, your neighbours? Do you remember who your neighbours were? H.H: Yeah, Mrs. Watson was just north of us, and she was also our neighbour in Buffalo, .and she was the one that talked my father into buying this property here and building next door to her here at Point Abino. That was Mrs. Watson. Just to the south of us was the M atham ( House, M atham owned that house. That house was here. Then right behind that, which is a house that we've added to and everything (2) �else... my sister lives in there now and Adams used to live in that ( house way back, and that house is one of the oldest houses on the Point, and that house was also used where the crew for the Marion L used to stay. Ike Adams was the skipper of the M arion L, and this was before there was any sand roads, any roads coming out on the Point. They used to go back and forth to Crystal Beach by boat. One of those boats was the Marion L. The life preservers of the Marion L are still in the attic of that house. They're all hanging on a mast from an old sailboat, perfectly preserved, so we'll leave them there. Now, before the Marion L there was the M ertle, and M itch . . . let's see. . . I don't know if it was Bragg or M itchener... M itchener used to skipper that boat I think, the M ertle, and that was built right up at, well, M itchener, Jimmy Braggs location. It was built, I think, by Mitchener and old Jack Sinclair. Jack Sinclair was the last of the clipper-ship sailors. There's a whole history on him. That's something else to talk about. I have a lot of information on Jack Sinclair. ( S.R: Jack Sinclair was a resident here? H.H: Oh yeah, he was a resident. When he retired from his sailing days he used to work around as a gardener, and in the wintertime he would carve ships that he used to sail on, you know, carve them and rig them. He'd carve them with the sea around them and then he'd give them to whoever he worked for. Now, he's given me some stuff but I never got one of his ships. And then, actually, we bought his property when he died and my father ended up giving it to Tony, who was our gardener at the time, he gave him the property. S.R: Do you know what Tony's last name was? H.H: I don't know, it's hard to... Mitch... it's hard to pronounce. Just Tony, big Tony. But, that's the way Jack Sinclair lived, the same house. I have some other things that he. . . the other thing he used to do was carve different things out of twigs, you know, furniture and things like that out of the twigs and branches in the woods, and the vines and stuff like that. I have some of that stuff. Now, getting back to our location here, the back part of our property ( is where the Indian burial ground is. The archaeologist from the University of Toronto... and I have a whole write-up. They've been (3) �back here for the last three years and I let them dig on my property. ( They... right at the end on my property they ran into some pottery, three pieces of pottery which has the designs, the rim, and two different designs, and fairly large but it's broken, the big vase... and perfectly clear the designs, and they estimate that it's around 2,000 years old. They found some cutting knives. They estimated their age around 800 B.C., and they've also found some spearheads and arrowheads and other things, but all this will be written up �nd there �ill be booklets on this stuff too. Right now a lot of these are going through carbon tests to verify their age and everything at the University of Toronto, I believe. S.R: This used to be an Indian settlement then? H.H: Oh yeah, this was originally settled in... there used to be all black walnut trees here. The Point was loaded with black walnut trees, and there was a .peaceful tribe of Indians that settled here. They were known as the Fishing Tribe, but there was an escartment here of shale, or what they use for tools, arrowheads, spearheads. They always stayed peaceful because they were traders. They made ( these arrowheads and spearheads and cutting tools and that stuff, and traded it all throughout the Continent. Some has been found down in southwestern parts of the United States. Eventually all this tribe was wiped out by the Iriquois. There's a lot more history I can go into on that. S.R: Like what? From around here? H.H: Well, there is also an Indian garden here. That's up at the Point. That would be on Brown Road, I think, down at the end of Brown Road where Carroll used to live. It's close, it's in that area. It would be south of ... I know where it is. It's back in the woods. That has been written up in some article in the Museum of Science in Buffalo. There's an article on that. It's an Indian garden, is what it is, the burial ground. S.R: H.H: Just by the weeds, the growth ... by the growth. S.R: ( How could they tell that it was an Indian garden? That's how they can tell this was a burial ground too? H.H: Well, there are certain ways that. . . if I'm walking through the woods and I run across certain weeds, you only find them in Indian burial (4) �grounds or Indian gardens, or something like that. The terrain is just your low evergreens, certain type of evergreens, and then they ( have these weeds, I forget what you call them. They're very thin and you can pull them apart and put them back together again. There again I could elaborate on all that. I'm just having a fast interview and all these names and everything, I haven't got at the tip of my tongue. Then they had the little yellow flowers. It's just the vegetation and stuff. Then of course there's certain other histories that have been referred to, like, Pierre Abino, who was a priest, used to... that's where Point Abina got it's name, from a priest, Pierre Abina. There's other people that have more history on him than what I have. S.R: What history do you have ·On him? What would Pierre Abino have to do with around here? H.H: Well, he came down to work with the Indians here. S.R: Would you know the approximate year, or anything like that? H.H: Right off hand at this interview I don't have any of those years. I have all the information available, but you'd have to fill it in. ( S.R: Do you know who one of the first white settlers were to build one of their cottages, well, summer homes, they're not exactly cottages, along here were? One of the oldest homes here. H.H: Well, you have the Holloway and Page, which are both Canadian, and Holloway had the Point Abina Sand Company. Then you had the Pages, there's several brothers. The Pages, one of them was John, Logden, and... I forget all of them, you know. The Holloways owned the southern half of the tip of Point Abino, and the Pages owned the northern half of Point Abino, so to speak. Holloway had a sand company, I guess they called it the Point Abino Sand Company. They had a sand dock that went out just... which is the present pier of the Buffalo Yacht Club. Holloway had that sand dock there. They also had another sand dock over on the west shore of Point Abino, right where the... the cribs are still there in the water. You'll see where it is. I know where they are. The... it's right where the shale rock on the Point meets the sand beach. Now, from there, there used to be a log road going across the Point over to the eastern shore of the Point, and there's a log road going (5 ) �through the sandhills there, and then that road continues through what we used to call Patterson's Cut. Now, of course you've got... right in that area you have Bragg, Jimmy Bragg, and that's, I don't know, they used to have an ice house and fishing boats, and... they still have a boat livery there. They've been... one of the oldest on the Point, but it goes before t� at. Bragg was Mitchener... was it Mitchener? That's ... that location is where the Mertie was built, one of the first boats, and it went back and forth. Now also there, there's two big white houses, they were owned by the Pattersons. Both those homes now owned by Bob Rich Senior and Bob Rich Junior. They used to be owned by the Pattersons. A little further up on the Point is the ... on the corner, the first road going back in, it's a ground road, is the old Pan-American House, and I believe it was the Wisconsin House in the Pan-Am Exposition in 1901, in Buffalo, and that was brought over here over the ice. S.R: The house was? H.H: Yes. There's even a postcard of that house. I forget... I don't know who lived in it at that time. ( I can remember some of the older names out on the Point. I can remember Carrolls used to live up there, way back. Of course the Fairburns, you've got the Sharps. They've been there a long time. Leapoles, he used to be up there. There's a whole list of the names that I could probably give you. S.R: You said that the Holloways and the Pages basically owned all the property on the Point at one time. H.H: Right. S.R: Would you know approximately when they settled, or the reasons for having it all divided up into... for them starting to sell off their property to have a settlement...? H.H: You'd have to go talk to Earl Page about all that. You'd get a better history than what I can give you. He lives right down the road here on Point Abino Road here, not too far away. S.R: All along the lakefront here, there is the Bertie Boat Club, I think it's the Buffalo Canoe Club, and the Buffalo... no, the something Canoe Club and the Buffalo Yacht Club. ( H.H: On the Point itself you've got the... the first boat that was out on the Point is Braggs. That's the oldest. It's a boat livery. He (6) . �still has a ( ..• he still keeps one fishing boat there and he still has his commercial fishing license because he keeps the boat there, but it's basically a boat livery. Now, that used to be an ice house and everything. Now, just north of that, coming in from the lighthouse, is the Bertie Boat Club, then right next to it is the Buffalo Yacht Club station. Now, I have pictlll'es of some of the old Yacht Club buildings back in 1902. Now, I believe that was a King's Grant at the time, that property, to the Buffalo Yacht Club. They got some kind of a King's Grant and I think they accquired some of it through Holloway at the time. And there again, I'd have to go back to the Yacht Club history on that which I have a write-up on. They used to have a sand dock that went -out into the lake along there, and •.• oh, back in the '50s no, it was the early '60s ..• ••• wait a minute... '50.. '59, '60, '61. But, then I . dredged a new channel in for the big channel, the present channel in for the Yacht Club. At that time Bob Tripp came up to me and asked if himself and maybe folll' or five, half a dozen other fellows could tie up on the north side of the berm that we built to drive the cars out ( on. I said, "Sure, go ahead". And that was the beginning of the Bertie Boat Club. Of course, they accquired the land there and everything else, and it's turned into quite a boat club. Why did people ask you? What did you have to do with all this S.R: that people would ask you if they could tie up their boats? H.H: Well, I belonged to the Yacht Club, and _ I had helped.. I was one . of the active promoters of getting this Point Abino station reactivat�d. I promoted it and dredged the new channel, the big one they're using now. S.R: How did you do that and who helped? H.H: How did I dredge it? S.R: Yes. H.H: That's a long story, and I have a whole write-up on that. It's available if you want it. Basically we had a strong north east ••• I mean, after promoting and trying to get the money. We had a Vice Commodore that was interested in getting this channel dug, and then a certain ( group got together and they said, "Well, we'll put the money in", because we had a strong three day north east wind blowing. At (7) �( that time the lake level was very low, very low. S.R: Because of the north east wind or just at that time? H.H: No, just, just .•. there was a cycle, you know, certain years it's higher and certain years it's lower. You always get your cycles. I don't care what anybody says, you always have your cycles, and they'll vary by 10 years apart, you know. But, this strong north east wind that was blowing, and it held off for three days, we had dry land way out to the end of where the weir is now. That was all dry land, all dry. Now, there used to be other channels dredged in there for other docks and stuff, and old man, old Al Storm used to dredge all those channels in. His son Mike knew them and Mike redredged them. So he knew all the channel beds and where all the hard and soft spots were. So, with the water so low I had Mike on standby with his drag line, and I said, "I've got the go ahead", and I says, "Mike, come on up and start digging". So, he just walked up his drag line all the way up there to the beginning of the channel. He had the floor boards of his, the cabin of the drag line with about ( an inch of water over them. And he says, "This is how far I can take it out", and then he didn't even use his mast to walk it out there. He says, "I can throw the bucket out another 30 feet, and I says, "Start digging". Well, what he did is, he had to dig real fast before the wind let up, and built an island behind him, shorewise, and he got this island, and he dredged right into the dock that whole day. He just kept building this island behind him and kept digging. He just kept throwing the dirt back and building an island. Then it was draining off, he had to build it high enough to drain off. Then he took his mast and he just moved his crane up on top of this island so that when the wind let up and the water came back down the lake, you know, it rose a little bit, that he'd be out of the water. Now, he was sitting on an island, so the only way he was going to get that drag line ashore was to keep digging, and keep throwing the dirt back. Now, the end results were that, before we were through, I had two drag lines going and three euclids from Campbells Quarry moving dirt. In front of the homes here... ( of course when we first built here, for many years this was all a sand road going up here, and... (8) �( S.R: You said before, that there wasn't a road. H.H: Well, there was no road. I don't know when they first ••• it was just a sand road going up when we moved here. S.R: Oh, so you could always come here without taking the ferry across and take the Marion L. H.H: Oh, no, no, that's all before my time. my time. No, we could drive up then. Oh yeah, that's all before Well, it was just a sand road along the shore. S.R: Was it a private road? H.H: It was private then. In fact, we used to have old Gordie Haun, and he used to be an old .•• h� was a gate keeper, and there's an old stone column down as you come, as you hit the lake, you know, right where you hit the lake there, there's a stone column there, and that's where they used to, we used to have a guard there. Then there's another gate up there further on up the Point, up by the Pan-Am House. Then of course they had another road here, that's a private road. It was all private at one time. ( S.R: Why can it be private? H.H: Well, a lot of these homes along here had Reparian Rights at the time... water rights. The original road between Holloway and Page, Page finally gave in the right of way, the road right of way across his part of the property. He gave Holloway the right of way and that's probably how they got the... decided where they were going to put the road. S.R: You said you knew a lot about the history of the Yacht Club. Would you know when it started, who started it, any of the backing, or .•• what's the history of the Club? H.H: To get into that I'll have to ••• we can get into that later in the interview on the history of the Yacht Club because I have to go pull out some more information here. When you start asking me names and you're going way back, I don't remember all these names. S.R: Well, what do you remember about it? Do you remember the approximate year that it opened? H.H: What, the Point Abino station? S.R: So, that question there on the Yacht Club was a little bit too big to answer on this type ef interview. (9) �( H.H: What are you asking? S.R: Oh, I asked i f you could explain the history ••• Before I shut the tape o f f I asked if you could explain the history o f the Yacht Club, and that question was a little bit too big. H.H: The history of the Yacht Club would take hours to tell you. I mean, I could go on for four or five hours and talk about the history o f the Yacht Cl ub. How long could you read through all those books, and those are all the history of the Yacht Club step by step. You wouldn't read it all in one night. S.R: No. H.H: So how can I answer the history of the Yacht Club in...? S.R: Yes, but that was just the question I asked before I shut o f f the tape. H.H: . At Point Abino they built one club house .. I mean... I can go on and on in 1860 and then it was around 1902, or before that, that they got a... it's the only Yacht Club that has a station in two different countries, one in the United States and one in Canada. ( There's no other yacht club that has it. Now, the only other Yacht Club that's any older in the Great Lakes is The Royal Canadian Yacht Club in Toronto. Then the Buffalo Yacht Club is the fourth oldest in the continent. S.R: What are some other memories that you have of the areas around here? H.H: Yeah, I mentioned the dairy trucks. S.R: You had said something about, there was an ice cream man around and... what you had just said before the tape was on... and Silverwood and Bordens were on Point Abino Road. H.H: Actually, the old sand road ... well right now, the sand hill used to ... it's just south o f the Yacht Club... the sand hill used to come right down out to the road. They used it ••• All that sand has been taken away. most of that sand they used to pave the Queen E.from Niagara Falls to Fort Erie. A lot of that sand was invaded, S.R: H.H: ( Was that part of the Point Abino Sand Company owned by ... ? No, that was owned by the Yacht Club when that was taken, the Yacht Club sold it. S.R: Where was the Point Abino Sand Company located? (10) �( H.H: All through there, the whole Point. I mean, their actual buildings.I don't know where their actual buildings are. I think one of them is down in Patterson's Cut there. Some of the old buildings where the men used to ... boarding houses or whatever you want to call them, by the Patterson's Cut there. I know where they are, or where they were. S.R: Would you know why it's called Patterson's Cut? H.H: Well, that's what we used to call it, because Pattersons used to own the homes along there. They owned the homes there and that was a cut by their homes that went over to the west shore. But it was also Sand Company Road, is what it was. S.R: Yes, to get all the sand out to .wherever they had to take it to. H.H: They'd go take the sand ... go out here and go up and then they'd take that cut to go over to the west shore. That was the cut. We used to call it, in my days when I was a kid, we called it Patterson's Cut. Then, just on the sand hill that's next to the Yacht Club, just on the other side of that toward the lighthouse, there is another ( path, it was a path just then. I know all the. . . a lot of these were just paths. There is also a path on top of the sand hill and there is another path right behind the Yacht Club that went over to the other shore, the west shore. Later on, the path on the lighthouse side became... when the Township, Bertie Township wanted the water intake, they built the water intake over on the west shore there, so that became Pumphouse Road. But that's all part of Bill Bairds property now. S.R: What about the lighthouse? What can you tell me about the lighthouse? H.H: Oh, I used to love the old fog horn a lot better than the new one. That old fog horn used... you loved to listen to it. The new screech owl that you listen to .•. S.R: Why did they change it then? H.H: Well,,! wish they never would have because I don't like the sound of this one and we loved the sound of the old one and it was powerful. You ask the people in charge why they changed it, I don't know. They're changing them all I guess. What that has to do with... that ( doesn't have anything to do with the history of the Point here though. We used to love the sound of that old fog horn. It would just echo through all these hills. It was beautiful. (11) �Do you know how long the lighthouse has been there? H.H: Well, now you've started to ask me dates off the cuff here. S.R: N o I mean H.H: ( S.R: I 100 years, 200 years? don't have all these figures, dates, at the tip of my tongue. It's right on the lighthouse, I can find it quick enough but I can't answer it over an oral interview. I could write it up better for you. S.R: Then, going back down the lake to ... H.H: They got the date right on the lighthouse. It's right there, you can �ee it. I forget all these dates. S.R: Going back then to Crystal Beach, Crystal Beach used to have boats going back and forth ... you have a lot of pictures of boats ... were you ever on the Canadiana and the Americana? H.H: Oh yeah, the Canadian.a and the Americana, many a time. S.R: Were there any other boats other than the two of those, to go to Crystal Beach? H.H: Oh, there was a lot of boats before them. You had your State of New York used to pull in there. There again, ( I have a whole list of boats, but I... then I. .. I can't ... without pulling out my files... S.R: That's why it's oral history, it's what you remember. H.H: Yeah, but I don't remember those. I mean, you asked me a question and I can answer it, but I can't answer it in two seconds here, I have to go pull out ... I know the State of New York, the State of Ohio, that used to pull into the docks but there was a lot more than that that pulled into those docks. That dock that's out there now is not the original dock. They had two docks before that that· were out there. S.R: What were they like? Were they jµst wooden? H.H: They're wooden docks on wooden columns. S.R: Isn't it a cement one now? H.H: Yeah. S.R: So that's why? The wooden ones just gradually rotted away and then they had to replace them. H.H: Well, they kept rebuilding docks. The ice storms, the ice would do their damage and storms would do their damage. Well, you look ( at the shape of this dock now, the cement dock. S.R: Do you know ...? (12) �H.H: Look at your Erie Beach dock, it's still there, only the ice does it's damage unless you're using them and maintaining them all the time. S.R: Could you tell me what the Americana and the Canadiana were like? H.H: Hmm, they were very gracious boats, beautiful. S.R: How many people would they hold? H.H: Oh, 3,000 people. But there again you're asking me for figures and I don't want to give a lot of misleading information, because I don't have the exact figures. I'm saying approximately. These kind of questions, you know, I like to answer them correctly. Just off the cuff I don't know what the figures are. figures. I never paid attention to them. was approximately 3,000 people, I don't remember all the I know that, around ... there maybe more. S.R: Could you explain why you said they were gracious, describe them? H.H: You've got to be a yachtsman or somebody that appreciates boats to understand what I'm talking about. They were just beautiful and that's what everybody still says about the boats, and to see ( them glide through the water and to see them coming in, to see them passing, just the way they were built, the shape and the lines they had. Then you'd hear the bands playing on them and everything else. That was part of Crystal Beach, just the same as the old Cyclone was part of Crystal Beach, just the same as the Dance Hall, the big Ballroom was... that was Crystal Beach. It was a family park then, no gates around it. S.R: Who started Crystal Beach? Would you know how it started? Was it Rebstock? H.H: Well, originally Erie Beach and Crystal Beach, they were more campgrounds. A lot of these parks were religious campgrounds, you know, they started out as groves. Crystal Beach was the same way. Now, Rebstock was... Rebstocks were very active in the beginning there. Then George Hall got in there ... and there again I'd have to double check when you're asking for names, but I know that Rebstock and Hall... S.R: So when Rebstock owned it it was religious campgrounds and they would have their summer meetings and group meetings and stuff ( there in the summertime. Did Rebstock start to put rides in for attractions? ( 13) �( H.H: That part of it I can't,right off the cuff ... to get it correctly I. .. I have pictures of the grove and postcards. I have all t he postcards that were the old boats that used to pull in there and the old rides, what it used to look like. As to the... and I even probably have it written up here someplace as to who started the park, whether it was Rebstock, when they started to build the rides. I'm not sure when they started to build the rides. It's the same thing as... I have pictures of the old Peg Leg Railroad. S.R: Could you tell me what that is? H.H: It was an elevated railroad. It ran from Crystal Beach to Fort Erie, and not too many people have ever heard of it, the Peg Leg Railroad, but I have the pictures. S.R: Could you describe how it operated? H.H: Well, it was just a car... it was electric. S.R: Describing how the posts were and how it...? H.H: Well, it was elevated. It was an elevated railroad. It was a one track railroad, and it was elevated on stilts. How many years it ( operated I don't know. I'm still looking into that myself. But I've got pictures of it and there's more history on it but it's awful hard to find. I showed you the two pictures of it and the best way to do it is for you to describe it or I can look at it. It's elevated on columns... a trestle, just like a big long trestle. S.R: And it had an open coach. H.H: Yeah, it had an open car, on top, and it just worked by electric. S.R: Living in Point Abino, where did you do your shopping? Do they have any stores, corner stores, post office, any Fire Department, Police Department, or anything? H.H: We used to shop, do a lot of our grocery shopping right in Crystal Beach. Kimberly's was on the corner of Derby Road and Erie Road, the grocery store... big ... Kimberly's. In Crystal Beach you had Kimberly's, you also had Smith's. That was on Erie Road. That building's still there. S.R: H.H: ( Point Abino didn't have any stores at all? For fresh vegetables we used to go up to Welland to the open air market up there. I can remember going up there for fresh vegetables then. Then you had stands all over the place for fresh vegetables. ( 14) �( S.R: But there wasn't just a corner store around or anything like that? H.H: There used to be a little store right up here on Point Abino Road. What's Bob's last name again? Bob owns the house where the store was. I'm just trying to think of Bob's last name. I know it as well as I know my own'but I just can't think of it. S.R: Where are the cabins that you mentioned? H.H: That's where Tiffneys is now. That there was there a long time. S.R: Tiffneys is the little store? H.H: Well, it's just a little store. There's a lot of little stores around. There's... Sherkston used to have a general store going down Sherkston Road there. Right by where the railroad tracks cross Sherkston Road, a store .and a post office and the train went right there, in Sherkston. S.R: Speaking of trains, what kind of train service did Point Abino have, or didn't they? H.H: Actually there was a ... in one of these houses up there in Point Abino, I think it's next to the Pan-Am House, ( I think it used to be a post office for the old Grand Trunk Line or whatever went through here. S.R: think that house was moved up there. Where is the old Grand Trunk Line? go through? H.H: I Well, I Where in Point Abino did it Was there a station? think that there's... the only ones that I know of... I mean, you're asking me way back originally, I can't answer that. But, right where it goes through now, right up Point Abino �oad. You've still got a railroad track there. It crosses Sherkston Road and it goes through Ridgeway. S.R: Was there a train depot or anything that you could get on and off or did you have to go to Ridgeway to use the train service? H.H: Well, I think we went to... yeah... no, I think you could get on and off at Sherkston. I don't know whether you �ould get on and off at Point Abino Road, but a lot of these trains, milk trains and stuff, they'd ... you could probably flag them down. Whether there was a station on Point Abino Road or not, I don't know. ( There was one on Sherkston Road up there where the tracks cross and there is also your Ridgeway station. That's all I know of. But on the Peg Leg Railroad there used to be a train station right in Crystal Beach, (15) �( about where the bus stop is, right across from the original drugstore, the old main entrance to the park, right at the foot of Derby Road and Erie Road. There used to be a train station right in there. S.R: Is there anything else you can recall about the train system? H.H: Well, there's a •.• I have pictures of a lot of the train wrecks that happened up here, in the area. There was one just ea�t of Ridgeway, there was a train wreck, and we have pictures of the train wreck right up here on the ... when a train hit one of Jackson's trucks on ·Point Abino Road, we have pictures of that wreck. That was the latest one. That was later. Well, that's just the train wrecks in the area, different ones. S.R: Going on to smuggling, you said you knew things about smuggling in the area. H.H: I don't know too much about smuggling in the area, except that old Gordie Haun always said that he us.ed to be a rum runner, or whatever you want to call it, you know, but it was all booze mostly ... nothing about the Chinese in this area that I know of. ( S.R : Was it a very big thing, the rum running around here? H.H: In those days sure it was, I mean, in those days. S.R: During the Prohibition? H.H: Yeah. They used to have all kinds of things down in Fort Erie, there's all kinds of stories. In fact, we were just talking about, I don't know, recently, about some of the rigs they used to have to smuggle across the Niagara River, in the Fort Erie area. S.R: What kinds of rigs? H.H: Oh, they'd have underwater rigs, rigs for Chinamen, and oh, I forget now. That's something else I'd have to go into, to talk to you about. S.R: What did Point Abino do for a Police Department or a Fire Department? H.H: Crystal Beach, S.R: Crystal Beach had a Police station and a Fire Station? H.H: Yeah, we always ... everything was Crystal Beach. Then later on Crystal Beach would just service Crystal Beach property and if there's a fire up here, I think a lot of it came out of Ridgeway, but this is mostly Crystal Beach would service this. ( S.R: You had mentioned something about the Town of Ridgeway starting in a different spot than it is right now? (16) �( H.H: Well, let me put it this way, the main part of the Town of Ridgeway and the general store, is now Smokey Trider's house, which is on the south east corner where Nigh and Ridge meet. That house used to be the old general store and I don't know, there used to be a horse livery. You'd have to talk to them about the history, but it was his wife's family. That used to be the general store and the main part of the beginning of Ridgeway. S.R: Would you know what his wife's family name was? H.H: No. S.R: Do you recall what other industry _Ridgewp.y had, changes ... ? Did you know anything about the fires in Ridgeway? H.H: No, I didn't kn9w anything about the fires, at least I never saw them. A lot of things h�ven't changed that much in th area, you _ know. You had Stewart's Drug· Store, you had Beeshy's, you had � the sweater shop that used to be there in Ridgeway. S.R: What did you do around Point Abina for entertainment ... dances, on. a date, the closest movie theatre, things like that? You'd go to Crystal Beach. S.R: Did Crystal Beach have a cinema? H.H: ( H.H: We didn't go to movies that much over here. If I go to a movie... oh yeah, Crystal Beach had a cinema. S.R: In the park itself? H.H: No, not in the park, right on Ridge Road. S.R: Was it owned by the Ziffs? H.H: Who? S.R: The Ziffs had two movie theatres in Fort Erie, and they used to... H.H: I don't know who it was owned by, I mean, I don't remember who it was owned by. But there is a movie theatre there. think it had an explosion and burned down. In fact, I It was right next to where the Fire Hall, right in that area there, where the Crystal Beach Fire Hall was. was a fire. That's where the movie theatre was. There That's not too long ago. But, in my days, you asked me where we went out, when we went out and there was no place to go we went to the ( Canoe Club. We used to have dances there. They had dances out in the boat house. They still do. active, teenage dances and stuff like that. (17) It was very You'd go to the Canoe �( Club or you'd go to Crystal Beach, or you'd go down to the Royal Ballroom. S.R: What was that? H.H: That's right at Crystal Beach... right where Bay Beach meets Crystal Beach, at the west end. S.R: Is it still there? H.H: The building's still there. It's owned by Rebstock. It's used for summer homes, or apartments. S.R: H.H: ·Oh, that place. Yeah, it's right on the shore. It's where the old Royal Hotel used to be. There used to be a hotel there, way back. S.R: Is that before you were here? H.H: It was before my time, yeah. . You're going back a little while, I'm not that old. S R: They have all these boating facilities here, where there any big...? H.H: Yeah, and in Crystal Beach there used to be another hotel just up from the Brewers there, the Bon-Air. ( That was right in on top of the hill there. It was the Bon-Air. I've got postcards showing that. S.R: That's not there anymore? H.H: No, no, no, it's all gone. Now, you had Dexters Rolling Rink there in Crystal Beach. That was one .of the original main attractions. S.R: Was that in the park? H.H: In the park. Then you also had the Old Mill there. That was an old attraction. They had the Fun House, that was a main attraction. S.R: What was the Old Mill? H.H: Where you take a boat through... S.R: Lover's Lane type thing. H.H: Yeah, you know, it was all enclosed. all dark and you come onto a scene. You come out of... it was The Old Mill. Then there was the Fun House, the Cyclone, the Dance Hall, and the Fen-is Wheel. S.R: H.H: ( Were you ever on the Cyclone? Oh yeah, lots of times. The Merry-Go-Round, the train. I liked the Cyclone. I thought it was a great one, they gave you a good ride. (18) �( S.R: It got your stomach real good, did it? H.H: Nope, it didn't bother me at all. Not like these twirly things they have. It was just a good thrill ride. I liked the Cyclone. S.R: Have you ever been on the Comet? H.H: Oh yeah, I've been on that. S.R: How would it compare to the Comet? H.H: Tame. I mean, the Comet's tame compared to the Cyclone. S.R: Would you know why the Cyclone isn't there anymore? H.H: Why the Cyclone isn't there? Well, that's a question you had better ask the Crystal Beach Company, not me. I would say that it was probably due to the insurance company and whatever. S.R.: Was anybody ever hurt on it? H.H: Oh yeah, there's been people killed on it, by falling out, but I'm not saying that it's the fault of the ride, it's probably the fault of the person riding it, you know, acting up, standing up and doing things they shouldn't do. ( S.R: Like on the Comet people have been killed by the same things, falling out. H.H: Well, I mean, that happens on any of these things when there's somebody out there doing things they shouldn't do. S.R: With all these boating facilities around were there ever any big races, or famous things like that here? H.H: Well, the Canoe Club, you have all your ••. of races, always has been. well, there's all kinds Now, right back when the Canoe Club used to have the old war c.anoe. The old war canoe's still hanging in the top of the boat house there, one of the old war canoes. You can see it. big old war ••• They used to have canoe races at the canoe club Indian war canoes. S.R: Why were they war canoes? H.H: That's what they were. S.R: Oh, they were just canoes used during the war? H.H: No, they're big canoes. You'd have to see them. I mean, you're asking things that you can't even ••• you've never heard of and you can't visualize. They are super big canoes. ( ••. S.R: How many people would they hold? H.H: A whole bunch . (19) �( S.R: Oh, big. H.H: Now do you know what I'm talking about? S.R: Yes. Was it just local races or races that brought in a lot of people from other cities? H.H: It would be whatever yacht clubs were around. It could be Erie Yacht Club, Buffalo Yacht Club, Buffalo Canoe Club, maybe it'd be Dover Yacht Club ••. I don't know when they were formed. I don't know if they were formed that early or not, but whenever ·these other yacht clubs were formed, the other yacht clubs would participate. Plus you have your own races among the clubs. have their own races within the clubs .•. within the clubs. Then later on, you know, in more recent years, you get into the ••. I can go back in the Canoe Club, they had the Knockabouts. about the size of a 21 foot sailboat. They well, That's You had the Knockabouts, you had the Snipes, which is a smaller, a little smaller boat, about a 16 foot sailboat. You had classes of those. You had ••• and then the Knockabout fleet got burned out by fire at the Canoe Club and it was replaced by the Lightning fleet, which is about a ( 21 foot boat, a sailboat. The Lightning fleet, now you're talking about a... well, it ended up, the Lightning fleet, they ended up having World championship, let alone North American and all the others. We have a lot of World championship in a lot of different class races right here in this bay now. S.R: Still? H.H: Right now. It has been going on for quite a few years. I mean, you don't, you probably don't realize all the boating activity that's out here. On some days there's thousands of boats out there. There's you have the Sharks, you have all ••• There's a lot of different classes, I mean, I don't know what all went on this year. of races out here. from Buffalo. They had all kinds You'll have a Mayor's Cup Regada going in here You have the Erie Dover Races, the Maitland Erie Dover Races, Dunkirk Races ••• these are all bigger boats, cruising class sailboats. Oh, there's all types of class racing. You have all types. There's all types of fleets out there. I mean new ones, ( all new boats. S.R: Would you know why the Americans settled this part? (20) •.• �( H.H: Why-it's a 15 minute drive from downtown Buffalo. They used it for summer homes. S.R: Well, why didn't Canadians buy it? H.H: Well, because the Canadians living in the area at the time had their homes. They would live where they worked or farmed, by the grocery store, in around the town, so why-five minutes away would they build a summer home. S.R: Well, why didn't the Canadians build their winter homes here? H.H: Because it's too far away from the centre part of town. S.R: Those towns started someplace. . H.H: What? S.R: The Canadian towns started someplace... H.H: Crystal Beach. S.R: Yeah. Well, you know, I can't understand why-it was that the Americans had to settle this. H.H: ( Why would they come out into the woods in Point Abina? There's a few, yeah, there's a few. S.R: Well, they had to clear the other places. Everything was woods at one time. H.H: Well, alright, so it started in Crystal Beach, in Ridgeway. That's where it started. I mean, you asked me a question, why wouldn't the Canadians build where? Fort Erie? so they settled along Fort Erie. They started Fort Erie They settled around where there's water or there's this and that and... S.R: So Point Abino didn't have any industry or anything like that to attract the Canadians so then the rich Americans liked the looks of it. H.H: No. Well, Point Abino was just strictly a summer resort area, strictly a resort area, but there were industries. S.R: H.H: Okay, so it didn't really have anything to offer. H.H: \ Point Abino is just a point of land going out into Lake Erie. S.R: ( But the other towns had to start someplace. Well, the only thing out here was, they had some lumbering on the Point and they had sand, the sand company... Point Abino, and Sherkston had a quarry. You get all of the stone out of these, and Windmill Point had a quarry. We had three quarries. They get all the rock (21) �( out of there . They take it and they built the Buffalo breakwater with a lot of that rock, plus other things. That's where they got a lot of that rock. No, Point Abino isn't an industrial area. It's strictly a ... there's no industry out here. S.R: Well, that's why I say, like Crystal Beach and Fort Erie, they all had to start at some point, you know, some focal point, and I was just ... that point could have easily been put around Point Abino, as around Fort Erie and Crystal Beach or Ridgeway, to have the .Canadians in the settlement. H.H: Well, a lot of that has to do with your... where do your roads go, and where do you get crossroads, and where does your train decide to go through? So, wherever the trains start going through, then that's where you get your main roads going through and that's where you get your crossroads, and that's where they'll start a settlement. S.R: Okay, so yes, Fort Erie was started through the trains then, so you had all the Canadian settlements around the trains, okay, so then, Point Abino had really nothing to offer for the Canadians. H.H: Point Abino was just out in the country. S.R: That's what I was just saying. H.H: ( That's all, Point Abino is just out in the country. You can go out and fish, and then there's ... as I say, except for the sand company and the lumber, that's all the Point was. It was just a bunch of sand hills. As a matter of fact, years ago it used to be just sand hills and a bunch of little lakes, like ... our backyard here was, that was all lake. Our backyard, the water level right now is only about two foot below the grass ... you know, about two foot down was water level. S.R: So, the lake's shrunk this much then? H.H: Well, I think that the lakes used to be higher. way back. Is that what you mean? Now, you're going You're going back several hundreds of years. I don't know just when ... that's way way back. It was when the Indians where here. The sand hills shift too, they move. I've seen this big sand hill, over here, I've seen it move a lot. I can remember when certain trees... I can go back and show you where all of a ( sudden that tree used to be, you know, no sand hill, and all of a sudden the sand hill is half way up these big trees. (22) �( S.R: From ground shift or from the wind? H.H: The wind blowing. S.R: You recalled a couple more Crystal Beach businesses? H.H: Yeah, Woolover was your photographer there. He used to have It just keeps moving it, erosion, they move them. his o ffice on Derby Road, where the old post o ffice used to be. A fire burnt his store of operation out, and all his negatives and pictures and everything else went with that. that had ••• I know another one mostly it was very big down in the park, were your ·novelties ·and things, that was Sherrif's. They had their stands down in there, in the park itself. I remember the old Park Hotel on DerbyRoad. In fact the, i f you go down there now ••• that's on Derby Road ••• it's a vacant lot and you can still see some tile from the floors. It's still there. S.R: Who was the first political representative that you can remember from around here, a reeve, mayor? Did Point Abina ever have it's own Council or was it Crystal Beach? H.H: ( No, it was Crystal Beach. Point Abina didn't have anything that I know of, or remember. S.R: So who was the first reeve then that you can remember? H.H: I really forget. there. I remember Jack Milligan was Mayor for a while When it comes to names of all these mayors and politicians, I forget names. S.R: · Yau had mentioned to me that Milligan was the ice cream man, and through hearsay and stories that he was a bookiQ. or something but none of that was said on tape. H.H: Yeah, I think I know where he operated out of too. S.R: Where would that be? H.H: On Derby Road. S.R: Where was his little ice cream operation run from? H.H: I'm trying to remember where he kept his ice cream trucks. S.R: Did he peddle it around? H.H: Oh yeah. The ice cream truck ringing the bell. ice cream trucks. He'd ring the bell, yeah. best ice cream call there was. ( He had several He'd call. He had the We used to ride the trucks. You had Northern Springs. Now, Northern Springs had pop, Northern Springs pop, soda water. Northern Springs also manufactured coca (23) �cola here in Crystal Beach. There's a Northern Springs coke bottle, ( and that's a rare find. Now, I have a lot of Crystal Beach midway bottles. S.R: H.H: Oh, that's just the bottles of pop that were sold in the park? Yeah, midway, and I think it was put out by Northern Springs though, but Northern Springs was a big had no water out here. • • • and they used to deliver. It was mostly �.11 sulphur. We We· had to drill our own wells, and Northern Springs would deliver your water for .you, your drinking water. S.R: For a boy, if he wanted a summer job while he was over here, what would he do to make a few dollars spending money? . H,H: Work in the park or, I don't know, clean boats. You're ... as far as the summer residents is concerned, most o f them weren't looking for summer jobs then, you know, you go back in those days. Another business that was very popular was Kinsmans in Ridgeway. S.R: H.H: ( What was that? Oh, you'd get all your sweaters and. china. S.R: Something like Beeshy's? H.H: No, Beeshy's was always china. Hers was more of a sweater shop and woolens and, you know, things like that, and she had both. She had some china too. S.R: More crafts? H.H: No, not crafts, not crafts. S.R: H.H: Already made. China. China, good woolens, no crafts. I'm talking about Braemars and, I mean, the good stuff, Braemar · sweaters. I'm talking about your good, good woolen store, your good Canadian woolens. I mean everything... you're looking at modernized where everything is made in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or so on and so forth. Your good stuf f was all, I mean, your Canadic woolens were the best. m . S.R: Yes. H.H: They were. You had the sweater shop and you had Kinsmans, and they were the two big ones. You had Beeshy's which was your expensive china. You could go in and you could buy wool material by the ( yards in either one of them. But Kinsman also had, she also had china, good china. I remember when Crystal Beach had it's own (24) �post office, Fire Department, Police Department, you had Brodie's ( Drug Store, you had Kimberly's Food Market, they had Smith's Food Market, you had Woolovers photographer, you had Borden's Dairy, Northern Springs, of course you had Crystal Beach Planing Mill... S.R: So why doesn't Crystal Beach have all these things anymore? Was it from the amalgamation? H.H: You're asking an embarassing question. S.R: Why would it be embarassing? H.H: .Because I don't want to get into politics. S.R: Was it from the amalgamation then H.H: As far as I'm concerned it is. S.R: You have a little story about the Point? H.H: ••• regional? Well, we can talk about the Point and some of the wrecks around here. I can remember the Britain, a grain freighter ... it was a grain freighter or flax seed or something, but it was basically a grain freighter... ran aground off the lighthouse off of Point Abino, and I can remember when it was above water. ( S.R: H.H: It's below water now? Well, they blasted it to level it so many feet below the water. That's navigation rules with any of the wrecks. But, then I can also remember some sand suckers out there trying to pull it off the rocks. They would get on the rocks themselves. lighthouse there used to •.• Before the I have the anchor off the Britain and . all the chain, and the anchor is standing right on the front wall out here, next to it. I also... I'm also a deep sea diver and marine salvage, and I also have the ships bell off the Britain. Nobody's seen that. It's a big brass bell and I found it down in the wreckage off the Britain. The old ••• it would be before the lighthouse, they used to have a light ship off the Point, and it went down in a storm, and I have the years and dates and everything like that. I can't just come up with them right now, and there's a whole story about it, and everybody thinks that light ship is still out there. Well, they'd found it and they salvaged it and they turned it into a training ship. I have the name of the ship, what the ship was when it was restored and converted and I have the whole story of the ship going down, the old light ship off of Point Abino, and the number and (25) �the whole story on it. ( S.R: Were there any other wrecks that you would know about? H.H: I found, off the Point about a mile out, now I recovered and old Spanish windlass in the bay here. I had old Jack Sinclair, who was the last of the clipper ship sailors, go up and look at it. He is the one that said that it was an old Spanish Windlass. Now, I have pictures of it. It was very large. It must have been, oh, eight foot long anyway, and the cogs, you know, the gears, the cogs, they were .carved into wood. It was just a plate, a steel plate on them, and Jack Sinclair looked at it and he said that that's an old Spanish windlass. He's the one that called it a Spanish windlass. And he said that that must be S.R: H.H: 250 years old. And that's still there? No, it's not st�ll there. I salvaged it out of the bay. It's not still out there, I brought it in. S.R: H.H: ( What would you do with something like that? I had it in the yard here. I tried to find some museum that would be interested in it and no museum had room for it. I went to the Buffalo Historical Museum and asked them if they wanted it and they had no place to put it. So finally, our gardener got out here and he burnt it and I was sick ..• I was down in Florida at the time, and I was sick when I found that out. So, the metal that was on it, the cogs and everything, I took it up to Port Colborne, to the marine museum, and the pictures of it and I don't even know whether they have it on display. If they don't I'm going up and get it back. I still have one part of it. I still have... but in the meantime, a mile off the Point, when I was diving one time, I ran across ••• this is strictly by accident ... the remains of an old wreck, an old sailing ship. It's in about 65 foot of water. Going out from the lighthouse you have a lot of shelf rock, and then about a mile out you've got about, you run into of water, 40 ••• it goes into about ••• it runs about 35 foot foot of water, and then you run into a lot of broken rock, and then it drops right off to about 65 foot of water. Right in that area there is where I ran into this little wreck, the remains ( of it. I can remember that the bowsprit's still down there. I'll go out and look for it again some day. The bowsprit's still down (26) �( there and I saw what looked like a big chunk of marble, I mean, maybe 10-12 foot long, and maybe two foot square, or a foot and a half square, and I says, "That's not normal rock down here". I said, "That looks like a chunk of marble". The only way I can figure that is that they used it for ballast. So ... but I did bring up a lot of... and I'll show you one of them so I'm not lying. I'll show it to you. I brought up a lot of block and tackle, you know, old wooden blocks and old ironwood blocks, everything was wood on it. . . old · ironwood blocks. They were so amazing. I knew Scott Misener very well at the time... I had a foundry up in Port Col borne. . . and · I showed some of them to him, some of this block and tackle. Boy, he'd just love to have some as conversation pieces, so I gave him most of them and he put them in the fireplace in his office up in Port Colborne. Of course that's Scott Misener who owns Misener Steamship of Canada. But I have one here and I'll show it to you. Now, there's supposed to be a rum runner that sunk off the Pan-Am House out here in about ( 30-40 foot of water. I never located it. There's a whole out there. But there's lot of anchors out in the bay. I've salvaged a lot of big, big anchors. There's one sitting right out here. There's two of them sitting right outside the door here. One. . . three of them I gave to the Canoe Club for decoration, one I have sitting right out here and then there's another one that's about a 191 2 anchor. Now that's a big one. That's off an old sailing ship, that black one, painted black out there. There's ... right now I know where there's an old lumber schooner from Tonawanda that was brought over here by the Sll)ith boys. They were going to do something . . . use it for docking facilities for the Buffalo Yacht Club. I know where that's sunk out there. I also know where there's some rudders, but I've never brought them up yet because when you bring them up I like to preserve them, they make a good cocktail table or something, and they1re big, they're big. I might bring it up and donate it to the Crystal Beach ... the Canadiana, or somebody. But I've got to find somebody that's going to use it. S.R: Oh, it has to be preserved right away? H.H: Yeah. I have a lot of stuff I keep... I just. . . I know it's out in the lake and I keep it there. It's the best place for it, because once (27) �( you bring it up then you've got to preserve it or do something with it, so as long as it's underwater it stays in good shape. So, there's a lot of stuff that I have out there that I know where it is and I just leave it there. S.R: That wreck ...? H.H: But the one off the Point, I'd love to find that. That could be a real historical find. When I have time I'll go back out and look for it again. S.R: · The one w ith the marble on it? H.H: Yeah, that has the marble. Now, they used to use marble ballast. If you read on this convict ship Success that came through the Great Lakes, it had Marble ballast. Ballast is what you put to weigh the boat down, you know, it's down in the bilge of the boat, down in the bottom of the boat, the inside on the bottom and it gives the boat weight. It holds them down in the water so it doesn't flip all over in the waves. But they were marble... that ship there, if I could ever find it, find out where it is, it could be one of the old ( fighting ships, you know, the War of 1 812, or even before. S.R: So, are you going to look next summer? H.H: I went out this summer with my footometer and found the drop-off but I... I don't have my diving equipment rigged up. S.R: Well, thank you for the interview Mr. Holzworth. H.H: You're welcome. (28) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Crystal Beach Subject The topic of the resource Crystal Beach, Ontario Description An account of the resource Select historical photos and documents digitized from the Fort Erie local history and Louis McDermott collections Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived FEPL -LH - Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library and Louis McDermott Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Shelley Richer Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Harvey Holzworth Location The location of the interview. Mr. Holzworth's home on Point Abino Road. Original Format If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Cassette tape Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History - Holzworth, Harvey Description An account of the resource Provided here is Harvey Holzworth's interview. He discusses such topics as: Crystal Beach Point Abino Ferries Crystal Beach Amusement Park Erie Beach Bootlegging Recreation Politics and government Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Fort Erie Public Library Local History Collection Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource September 25, 1985 1980s 1985 Crystal Beach Crystal Beach amusement park Erie Beach ferries Fort Erie Oral history point abino politics and government recreation transcripts http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/495da58df04d24c1565a30c294114c29.pdf a0e25619934822c8293abdf0add0fbc4 PDF Text Text Beverly Branton interviewing Mrs. Young on April 16, 1985. The interview is being held at 3801 Farr Ave., which is Ridgewood Manor, in Ridgeway, j Ontario. B.B.: Hello, Mrs. Young. F.Y: Hello, Miss Branton. B.B.: Could you tell me the date of your birth, please? F.Y.: April the 19th, 1901. B.B.: 1901. F.Y.: My place of birth was at my grandfather's farm just off what is now the And where was your place of birth? Thunder Bay Road in east of Ridgeway. B.B.: What type of farming was your family involved in? F.Y.: In general farming. And there were several sections, like, at the farm; one part going over as far as the Dominion Road, being bush land; the central part being farming, general farming land; and then the lakefront property which grandfather considered as practically of no value because it was swampy. I lived there until I was two years old when my father and mother moved to Buffalo and then when I was about eight we moved back to Ridgeway. The farcm; was sold, I think, about 1913 to an American man who had camped on it in the summer months near the lake and he could see, forsee, the future use of that and bought the farm, the whole thing, later selling the bush land as one section, and the general farm as another section, and he kept the lakefront which he later developed and sold lots, and we figured, have figured, that now the price of a lot there would be about the price that grandfather got for the whole farm. B.B.: What type of farming was:your grandfather involved in? F.Y.: Just general farming. You know, the ordinary farm where there's apple orchards and there's grazing for the cattle and ... B.B.: What do you remember of the farm? Do you remember what the material it was built out of? F.Y.: Oh, their house was a clapboard house. And I remember gramma always had a row of sweet peas along the fence there. Now, of course my later memories were when we spent our summer holidays there, always spent most of the summer there. B.B.: ( How was the farm heated? F.Y.: By woodstoves. And there was one room in the home that I remember, that I was just fascinated with, at the rear of the home and with no heat in it, and in there grampa kept his hams hanging there, and 1 �the currying of meat, and there was also a smokehouse outside where they did this smoking of meat. B.B.: How did they light the farm? F.Y.: Coal oil lamps were the method of lighting. B.B.: Where did you go to school? F.Y.: Well, when we moved back to Ridgeway when I was about eight I went to the Ridgeway Public School, finding it difficult to adjust to the classes because the American system which I had gone to school for three years was way ahead in spelling and literature but way behind in the other subjects such as geography, and arithmetic and so on. B.B.: How else did you find the education system different between the States and Canada? F.Y.: Well, I really don't remember too much because I was too young, I was only eight when we came over. B.B.: What grade did you go to in school? F.Y.: Well, I went into Senior Second, as they use to call it, which would now be grade 4 because I could spell and I could read and that but I had to have help with the arithmetic and so on. ( B.B.: And you graduated then at what age? F.Y.: Age 11 from public school. B.B.: And there was no high school at that point? F.Y.: Yes, there was not a high school, it was called a continuation school, and the school was in the old brick building now standing, public school taking a section of it and the high school had a wing, the continuation school I should say. It only consisted of two rooms; the two lower forms were in the lower room, and the upper form was in the upper room with the chemistry lab and that all contained in the same room. B.B.: F.Y.: How many years was the continuation school for? It was continuation school, let me see, when the new public school was opened, two rooms up there were reserved for the continuation school and they were in the same building as the present school in now, until, I'm not sure, I think, about 1925 or so, but Mr. Discher could really tell you that. B.B.: { What was the size of the classrooms? F.Y.: Oh, my goodness, well in some rooms there were three grades in it, and that school included Ridgeway and Crystal Beach people. 2 �There was no school at Crystal Beach at all. B.B.: ( How many teachers were employed? F.Y.: I think, I think only three in the public school. Of course, it didn't begin 'til grade one, there was no kindergarden in those days. And in the high school, the continuation school, there was just two teachers. B.B.: Now you told me your occupation was teaching. F.Y.: Yes. B.B.: How did you get involved in teaching? F. Y.: Well, I just always wanted to teach. I knew I was going to be a teacher from childhood up. B.B.: Did you have to take further education like they do now? F.Y.: Oh, yes, but we went to normal school, what we call normal school, in, I went to Hamilton. B.B.: How long? F.Y.: Just a year. And then I taught four years in the country, back of, north of Sherkston, and the four years in Ridgeway, grade five. B.B.: What grades did you teach? F. Y.: In the country, a one room school, which was quite a change for me! ( And in Ridgeway, grade five. B.B.: Could you describe the one-room school? F.Y.: Well, the seats and their desks were long. Two children sat on one bench, and the desk, the long desk, served for the two of them. And I found that discipline there was much easier than discipline in the village school at Ridgeway. B.B.: Why? F.Y.: Well, I suppose, they, you, would think that two children sitting together there'd be a lot of giggling and whispering but they seemed to apply themselves to their work more, and maybe there was a little sibling rivalry, too -which will get finished first and which will have the better. I don't know what it was. But nineteen pupils were all you had but eight grades. B.B.: Did most people attend school? F. Y.: Oh, yes, yes. And some after the entrance, as we called it, grade eight, most of the boys from the country schools stayed around on the farms but then in the winter months, occasionally they would come and back to the school, for three or four weeks, and maybe ( a little longer, depending on the winter work of that farm, and they would, I would be able to help them a bit with what now would be called first form, grade nine, as we called it first form, high school. 3 �B.B.: What about transportation? F. Y.: Well, in Ridgeway at that time we had four daily train services and ( How did you get to school? I went up on the morning train at, it left at 7:17, as I remember, in the morning, and we'd get off at the next station, Sherkston. And there I'd be met and go back to the school, about two miles north, where I boarded all week at a farm home. And then I would come back home on Friday night to Ridgeway on, we use to call it the evening train that got into Ridgeway about 8:30. And then we also had a mail train at noon going east and another train at five and shortly after five o'clock going west. So we had four ferries, passenger trains a day. B.B.: What other transportation was available? F. Y.: Well, cars were just corning in, you know, they in maybe a year or t wo but they were not very plentiful in number. B.B.: What year would that have been? F.Y.: Well that would have been around 1917, 19. B.B.: So not everyone owned a car? F.Y.: Oh, no, no! We , we were quite, we felt it quite a priviledge to be invited to ride in somebodies car. ( B.B.: Could you describe one? F. Y.: Well, one I remember particularly had, well now it seems it was a material like duck, like they make the awnings and things out of , for the the top and the windows when they had them closed were more, as I remember it you know, but to rnethey were, they had to, whether they were, so that they could be opened fully and you rode without a top maybe, I just don't know what, but I remember this lady with whom I rode quite often, she didn't drive, of course ladies didn't drive much then, cars were so new, but she always had a heavy scarf on or if she wore a hat it had a big veil on and I can remember this veil float out in the breezes as we drove along and t wenty-five and thirty miles an hour was considered quite a speed. B.B.: Why wouldn't women have driven more? F.Y.: Well, I, they started afterwards you see but I think the fact that it was such a new piece of machinery to use and of course there was no automatic shift then either, you shifted gears and with the Fords and that you cranked her up to get the engine going and, too, ( you needed good muscle to do that. B.B.: What were the roads like? F. Y.: Oh, there were very few surface roads, very few. 4 �B.B.: What is a surface road? F.Y.: Well, I mean like the paved macadamized or tarveit[tarmac], I guess ( you call it now and there were a lot of gravel roads on which you had to drive carefully too, for fear of skidding and that. B.B.: Just to go back 1'to the school system, you being a teacher, can you see a diffe:Fence1.between the school system of today, then when you went to school, and then when you taught as a teacher •.. a comparison between the three? F.Y.: Oh, yes! When I went to school it was reading, writing and arithmetic and we had writing exercises practically everyday and we had little exercise book all with lines and we did our writing practice in that and I will say on the whole we turned out better writers then, then are turned out now, when youngsters are permitted to use ball point pens and hang on to them with all their might. We, we never could use anything, we use to have ink wells in the desk and then we had to have what we called a Spencerian pointed pen. B.B.: When you reflect back on Ridgeway I had read where there was two major fires. F.Y.: Do you remember them? U-hum. I remember the one, I think it was about 1913, I think, either 13 or 14, and it happened during the middle of the night and it started in what was use to be the Welland County Telephone Exchange Building and of course in those days there wasn't, there were no fire departments like there are now and it was practically bucket brigades that fought, the sparks and that and it went down, let me see, it took in several buildings on the main street there and I can remember how mother had us up and everything, anything, papers of any value or that she had all together so that she could, if we had to leave the home, even though we, we were a couple of blocks away, yet the sparks blew so. B.B.: What is a bucket brigade? F.Y.: Well, the men just, they got bucket, ·water from the various wells and they just formed a line and just kept passing it along in a steady stream. B.B.: When did the Fire Hall come to Ridgeway? F. Y.: The Fire Hall was built on Cutler Street but I really, Ithink I was teaching in the country when it was built but I'm not sure. I couldn't ( tell you. B.B.: You had mentioned that the fire had started in the Welland County Telephone Exchange. 5 �F.Y.: Well thats the building, yes. I don't know whether it started in the, in the, telephone equipment part of the building or whether it started, you see it was a combination home and telephone exchange and at that ( time we had what we called the Welland County Telephone and then we also had the Bell System, too. B.B.: Would you describe the difference between the two or what the... ? F.Y.: Well, the Welland County Telephone System was local. I t took in Fort Erie and Port Colborne and Ridgeway, I think Stevensville, too. of course the Bell System was province wide, country wide. And And when I graduated from continuation school I had to wait two years before I was of age to go to normal school so I worked in the Bell Telephone office for over two years. B.B.: What was your ? F.Y.: Mr. Brodie, the druggist, had the Bell Telephone Exchange in the rear .•• of his store. B.B.: What was your job? F.Y.: A telephone operator. B.B.: Would you describe that? F.Y.: Well, it was a old fashioned, considered now an old fashioned switchboard but to us then it was pretty modern. ( And it had, like, little round discs which when a call came in they, what, the covering of that disc flat down and it appeared red and you plugged your cord with this plug on into the little hole beneath it and then you talked into it asked the question you wanted to know, "Number, please", and then a lot of it was long distance. And most of the merchants and the doctors had both phones in their homes. B.B.: There was a difference between a long distance phone an a local phone? F.Y.: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. B.B.: What was the difference? F.Y.: Well, it was under different companies, you see, and the Bell rate, as I remember, was a little higher, too, and a lot of people didn't phone any further. If they did they came into the office and put their phone calls in. If they wanted to phone someone way, say in, Northern Ontario or somewhere that would have to go through the Bell System. B.B.: How would someone, at that point, it they didn't use the telephone system, how whould they contact ( •.. ? F.Y.: Oh, the mail service. B.B.: What was the mail service? F.Y.: Well, it was very good, really! And another thing that when I- look back 6 �on and think about it, if we didn't catch the mail we knew these four trains went out each day, on the times, if you didn't get your letter to the post office on time you could run to the station with it and you ( could hand it to the carrier who use to take the mail from the post office over to the trains on a little cart and you could hand it to him or even the mailman at. the, in the baggage car�would reach out and take it from you so you knew your letter got on its way. B.B.: What was the price of postage? F.Y.: Three cents, as I remember and I don't remember it being anymore to send a letter to the States, but I'm not just positive about that, but I don't think so, I think they were all the same and it was three cents then. B.B.: Back to the telephone; did most people own a telephone? F.Y.: No, not like now a days, no. You often, if you had a phone, you often took calls to someone to calland ask you if you would give a message to your neighbour who didn't have a phone. There was a feeling of, more or leas;::, <>haring of things in those days. B.B.: F.Y.: Yes, there was a night operator. B.B.: ( Was the telephone service opened twenty-four hours a day? What about radio F.Y.: I don't know, we didn't, my family didn't have a radio until about the when did radio come into Ridgeway? ••• early twenties but I just can't tell you when, I think about 1924 or maybe 23. B.B.: What about the television? F. Y.: Oh, my! No, television, well we got our first television in 1955 but there were others before that. B.B.: How many stations could we get in this area? F. Y.: In the television? Well, when we first got, when we got the first one, really the Buffalo stations were about the only ones that came in very clearly and Hamilton. B.B.: How many Buffalo stations were there? F.Y.: There were three. B.B.: What did you do for your social life and recreation as you reflect back? F. Y.: That question makes me laugh because people use to say, "Oh, what do you do around here in the winter time?" Why we had wonderful times in the winter time. When we went to school we use to haul our sleds at night, in the nice moonlight night, and come up to what we call Lindsay's ( Hill, up here, which is just across from this Lion's Complex building here • •. and coasting and then to somebod'ys_; house for hot chocolate . •• and cookies afterwards. That was childish enjoyment... and little dance 7 �around at the different homes. And then as we got older the Oddfellows had built the Oddfellows building and they, Oddfellows themselves helped pay for the building. ( We use to hold monthly dances with live orchestras then, and there were card parties, and the visiting back and forth, and usually a sleigh ride party aat least once during the winter months. We were never at a loss for things to do. B.B.: As you look back, do you, you went through two World Wars. F. Y.: Yes. B.B.: What do you recall of the changes in Ridgeway during these times? F. Y.: Well, I was in high school, in continuation school, I keep saying high ••• s chool, continuation school during the 1 World War and during the 2nd World War it was a busy time of the knitting needles clicking all the time, we sort of turned out a lot of knitting materials for the Red Cross Society. B.B.: What type of materials? F.Y.: Oh, we knit sweaters, we knit socks galore and pull over sweaters and the balaclava caps for the navy, scarves for the navy, and each church in the area had a group who knitted but all the main materials came from the main branch which was at one time in the up of the town hall in the upper area of the town hall and they would come there and get ( their supplies of wool and everything was accounted foras it came in we had to write down and keep track of how many skeins of so much yarn, the navy and the brown, and then it was doled out and that was reported and then we were expected to get so much back out, and everybody was really knitting and working there and there were concerts held, proceeds to go to the Red Cross and so on. B.B.: Was this all volunteer work? F.Y.: This was all volunteer work, yes. B.B.: Was there a lot of volunteer involvement? IF.Y.: Yes, there was a lot of volunteer involvement. B�B.: What about the 2 World War ? .•. F. Y.: lJell, that's the one I'm speaking about. I don't remember too much about the 1st World War, well I remember the end of it and how, you know, the cars went through shouting. n�t at that time there were'nt too many cars but the few that were got around letting everybody know that the war was over, in November but the 2nd World War, yes { .•. My jusband served in the 1st World War but the 2nd World War 11 really had no one in the family, the immediate family, and family. •.• Ihad nephews but not immediate .•. 8 �B.B.: How long was your husband away for? F.Y.: He went in 1916 t0.start, well I don't think he came over 'til after Christmas, after the Amnestos. B.B.: What are your recollections of the Depression? F.Y.: Well we were in business, had been, at that time it was Young Brothers then, my husband and his brother, Harrison. And the Depression Years most people heated by coal and people out of work just found it very, very hard to get money enough together to buy fuel and you couldn't, you couldn't see people go cold and it was hard to hold a business togeL1er. And we use to, they had quite a business in making cement blocks and they were down in what was called the gravel pit below what's now the public school in Ridgeway of course building was, there just wasn't much •.. and •. • and I remem:,ber t0o, :;here was a number of transients walking down the railroad tracks and we would have, oh many during the winter months coming to you.rdoor asking for a meal or for warm clothing. B.B.: Could you describe F.Y.: Well, it was in 1912. a bit about how Youngs Lumber got started? My father-in-law was a tailor by trade and then he had a position as custom officer at Crystal Beach during ( the summer months. Well, when the government changed he lost his job. B.B.: Why? F.Y.: Well, apparently, in those days, temporary positions like that were what according to the politics, as I understand it. Anyway, so he started up this business. It was first the making of blocks and then it just kept on developing. And when my husband came back from overseas he joined his father, it was called John Young and Son, and then when his father was not too well the brother who was in St. Catharines at the time with the Imperial Bank came and then it was called Young Brothers. And then in 193 0 they purchased what was Mathewson's Planing Mill and then they added lumber to the building supplies and then they've added more lines since and its become now it's, Youn�umber and Supplies because back farther there was my husband, his brother and then the brothers c cme into the business . son11anct then later our son and now there's JUSt my son runnmg the . business. B.B.: What changes do you see on the main... the business street of Ridgeway? F.Y.: Oh, that has changed a lot. Of course, fires brought changes and 9 �and where the Breweries Warehouse is now on Ridge Street it is set back from the main street a ways, the parking lot is in front, but ( that was the Queen's Hotel, a three storey, brick building well ••• the teachers used to board there and room, and at that time that I remember it was run by a Mr. and Mrs. White and she was renowned as an excellent cook. And then across the railroad track from it was a store, grocery store, with a bakery behind it, and it was first run, as I remember it, by a Mr. R. T. Hardison and then it later became Brown's, S.C. Brown and now I think it's, I think a real estate office in one half of it and a cleaning establish ment in the other half ..• but it use to have a big veranda, wooden veranda acros s the 1frobt of it, and always the men were gathered there, chatting away their morning chats and business began in those days at a much earlier time in the morning then it is now. B.B.: What time? F.Y.: Well, the mail went out on that 7:17 train so there were always people around soon after that because the morning papers came up on that train from Buffalo, you see. And then too, to go back, it was interesting, we also had a Sunday ( service of trains see, a train, so many Americans had moved along the lakefront and that had summer homes and there was a train that came up Sunday morning and landed in Ridgeway shortly before 10 o'clock in the morning and went back down at night about 7 o'clock and that was quite an exciting time, we all got there to see the train come in and go out, you see. And my father use to commute from Buffaloand go back on that on the weekends. B.B.: So the trains were one of the major...? F.Y.: Oh, yes and freight trains went through you know, and the whistling, I really missed it when the trains stopped running, there used to be, you know, the whistles were heard distinctly and the bell ringing and now it seems queer that you don't have to stop and wait for a train. B.B.: When did the trains stop? F.Y.: I can't remember. !really don't remember. It was too long ago, but I just don't remember, really, not to place it accurately. B.B.: Would you tell me a bit about the doctor's offices, their businesses? F. Y.: As I remember it there were two doctors in town, living side by side; one on the corner of what is now Elm Street and Ridge Street 10 �and one right next to it. In my early childhood there was Dr. Snider and his brother-in-law Dr. Thompson and there was no hospital, ( babies were born at home, unless some folks went to Buffalo to the hospitals there, then those children had what we call, now call, dual citizenship because they were born in the States but of Canadian parents but they had that dual citizenship. B.B.: Was anyone allowed to do that? F.Y.: Yes, if their doctor thought it was going to be a complicated case or anything, wellthey were sent. to the hospital in Buffalo. And there was a hospital at Welland in the early days and then came the Port Colborne and in 1931, I think the Fort Erie Hospital opened, 31. B.B.: Did the doctors make home visitations? F.Y.: The doctors made home visitations and use to go 'round... I can remember riding with Dr. Sider and he was very kind and we'd pick up youngsters and take them a ride because a ride was quite a thing the horse and buggy days, even, and go out into the country riding with him when he made a call, you see. then. ( House calls were very, very, frequent And then Dr. Sider sold out to his nephew, Dr. Stuart who was here for a good many years and then was Dr. Macey who ttook his place and Dr. Thompson, no relation to the former Dr. Thompson. B.B.: What about pharmacies ... ? F.Y.: Well, when I was a child we had two drug stores and there was and - they always called him Dr. Brewster, I think he was a medical doctor, as well as a pharmacist. And then Mr. Brodie had the other drug store. B.B.: Was there a difference between a pharmacist today then yesterday? F.Y.: Well, I think there was more patent medicines in the old days. You went in and you said, " Well, my child has a bad cough, what would you recommend?", you see. And I know that there were not the drug that there are now and prescriptions, the doctors, some of the doctors, carried their own medicines and you would get your cough medicine right at the doctors when you went to see him. B.B.: F.Y.: { Was there health insurance? No, there was no health insurance and you paid your doctor bills right out of your pocket not into a health :r:Nlnl firs t, which takes care of things as it does now. And then another, the drug stores were quite a gathering place 11 �for the young people because they sold ice cream and they had the nice little chair, round tables with what they call, now call ice cream ( chairs, which are quite popular today. famous for its chocolate sodas. And Brodie's store was quite Always a gathering in there and the Americans when as they came over in the summer months were always very fond of Brodie's chocolate sodas. I don't know whether there was a special chocolate syrup or what but anyway that was the gathering place. B.B.: Alot of the students from the continuation school, would they go there •.• after school? F.Y.: Oh, yes but in those days we didn't have the pocket money that children have now because for one thing a great many of our parents were not employed during the winter months. B.B.: Why was that? F.Y.: Well there just wasn't the employment around here. There was no Fleet Manufacturing Company to work at and a lot of the men went fishing in the winter months, ice fishing. And it was common to hear dogs barking in the winter months because so many kept dogs in the village. ( In fact, many people kept chickens in the village. Of course, after awhile that was forbidden but our neighbours next door had a chicken pen and chicken house. B.B.: What was the type of employment that caused it just to be seasonal? F. Y.: Well, carpentry for one thing and my father was a brick layer and of course winter employment in either of those lines unless it was indoor such as fireplaces or in the carpentry, doing inside carpentry and then a great many people worked at the Crystal Beach Park and there were very, some people worked out of town like my father worked in Buffalo and thencame home on weekends for a great many years until about 2 0, 19, in the20's that came and stayed here regularly and worked out of here. B.B.: How would people financially handle themselves during the winter months if there was no unemployment or ? . . • F. Y .: I can remember one of the business men, grocery businessmen, saying that he having carried people over the winter months, then it took them nearly all summer long to pay back what they owed in the winter but of course there was a lot of, well people did their home ( sewing, they did their home baking, you didn't run to the store and get everything packaged, pre-packaged stuff and everything , you 12 �know and people would buy a quarter of beef and kind of plan ahead for the winter months but of course wages were low then too when you compare. I can remember, definetly my mother giving me ten ( cents and me going to the butcher shop and getting calves liver, enough to feed four of us, so that's a long while ago but,. and a •• loaf of bread was only a nickel you see. B.B.: What other prices ? ..• F.Y.: Well, a quart of milk was only a nickel from when we use to have a little milk pail that just held a quart with a cover on it and I don't know whether there was a dairy, I don't remember anybody coming around but I know milk wasn't pastteurizea and I but we went to a friend, a neighbours up the street a ways who kept a cow and we got our milk there,every night went for the milk. There was several places in town where people kept a cow and you could go and get the milk. And then when Mr. Doan started the dairy, up outside of Ridgeway it was not past.e_uiized at first then, the milk, later past®dzation came in you see. B.B.: Were there any medical problems from ? F.Y.: Not that I ever remember as a youngster, I don't remember. .•• And of course, now green goods were not available then like ( they are now. We were considered quite lucky because my father would come, as I said, home on the weekend, in the bottom of his clubbag, as he called it, not a suitcase, different shape, were always oranges, and some lemons for mother for pies and some bananas and usually some candies for the youngsters, we were four in the family. Then an Italian family by the name of Cammarata came into town and started handling vegetables and was it ever wonderful to be able to get green goods through the winter months and they started out first in the place that is now th United Church manse or parsonage and that's where they first located. Then they moved up into the central part of the town, had a nice big brick store there. B.B.: Where did they receive their green vegetables? F.Y.: From Buffalo. They had been, I think during the summer seasons, associated with a family at the Beach who were related to them and they use to have, carried groceries and green goods and Crystal Beach oranges and that in the summer months when Crystal Beach ( was opened. And of course, Crystal Beach was a wonderful place to go and 13 �not at all like it is now. It's more of a family gathering place. Picnic tables were much in use and there were a few amusements, the merry-go-round, I can always remember being there. But there wasn't the great big roller coasters, there was what they use to call the figure eight which was very - what- less dafng then the big, roller coaster. B.B.: Would you describe that? F.Y.: Well, it was on the same plan like and then it was exactly as I said, it went like a figure eight only it went up, it elevateditself on the height of the eight yousee and around. We considered it quite a ride but of course it was so tame compared to the roller coaster. And the Crystal Beach boat that use to come across and then befor the cars were so prevalent and the buses ran, there use to be a launch go from the Crystal Beach dock taking passengers up to the Pr. Abina area. It was run by a man by the name of Mr. Charles Adams. B.B.: F. Y.: Well, summer homes that the Americans had built up there. B.B.: ( What was in the Pt. Abina area? Do you recall when the American population started coming in? F.Y.: No, I really don't. I think, I know down in the Thunder Bay area it wasn't until around the 191 0's or so when they started coming no, it would be earlier than that. But there were a few summer homes below that, there was that they called a Curtis family from Buffalo, they had a home up on the top of the hill side by Six Mile Creek which I remember as a small child. Most of our Sunday School picnics were held at Crystal Beach and often we would take our Sunday supper out there and there were always swings in the park and the youngsters had good swing and a good romp and you could go wading a bit. It wasn't all restricted you see as it later became when it became the Crystal Beanh Company. B.B.: Where did you go swimming? F.Y.: Well, we use to walk places in those days. We use to walk down to the Thunder Bay area, like on the road allowance and that an I never swam, I was too afraid. I didn't let my feet off the surface and I was always cautioned by mother never to go in above your knees. We use to walk out, when we were teenagers, walk out to the front of Clause, what is now the Clause pDoperty and have bonfires and roast our corn roasts and weiner roasts and lug our stuff out and walk out there and walk back into town. Didn't think anything 14 �of it, and we walked to Crystal Beach all the time, we didn't think anything of it. ( B.B.: How many miles would that be? F.Y.: Oh, I don't think it would be more than mile, maybe a mile and a half. There were no bus services, kids all walked to school you see, of course they came in from Crystal Beach into school and they were seldom absent when I was teaching. The youngsters knew how to use their feet in those days. B.B.: When did the bus service come in for the schools? F. Y.: It was after I stopped teaching, I don't really know. B.B.: Oh, the bus service helped the rural children, a lot, yes! And I can remember youngsters walking in from the beach yousee because the public school served Crystal Beach, at first, as well as Ridgeway before the Crystal Beach school was built and they would come in on a rainy day, soaking wet you know and you would just let them stand by the radiators and some of their shoes have to be taken off and get dried out. Oh, yes. It certainly helped the rural youngsters. And continuation school, there were pupils who were so anxious for an education who lived east of Ridgeway that would walk up ( the railroad track to Ridgeway and there were pupils west of Ridgeway who would 'Naik down the railroad track in the mornings and then the Sherkston folks from up that way they would walk down that five or six miles straight down the railroad track in the morning and back on that 5 o'clock train at night, you see. I think, I really think an education was more appreciated then, then what it is now. B.B.: Was there colleges? You had mentioned you F.Y.: Well, we only went to grade 12 in continuation school, so therefore ••• ? if you wanted to go on to be a teacher you could go to normal school with that but you could only teach public school, you see. If you wanted to go on for university you had to go to Welland for grade 13, which meant you had to board over there and and which most of us couldn't afford to do. A few went on mind you but not too many. And people from Stevensville, they use to come over. Now some of them, two girls who were sisters had a pony and use to drive over to continuation school and stay from Stevensville. ( B.B.: With a wagon pony and a wagon? F. Y.: No, pony and a nice little cart, like. ••• And they use to tether it in 15 �right beside the old school in the, well there was a Free Methodist Church there at that time and it had stables like at the back like shed, like for tieing up your horses and they would keep it in there ( during the day while they were in school. B.B.: How long was your school day? F.Y.: We went in a t 9: 0 0 and we were out at 4: 0 0. B.B.: I'm interested, Mrs. Young, also in the winter months you had mentioned about canning ..• to can tb prepare for the winter months ••• ••• where would you get your fruit from? F.Y.: Well outside, just outside of Ridgeway, in fact in this very spot, here was a Mr. Lindsay who grew berries and vegetable produce and things. And as a child I remember coming up and picking raspberries and then we would be able to buy our raspberrie�. I canned, we always canned, made strawberry jam, all the various things and it really was a delight to go down into the basement, after I started housekeeping, and see these shelves upon shelves of canned goods ready for the winter months and everybody did it! And we, well to start with, most of us had our own gardens and of course there were no freezers in those days, either. There were refrigerators and the freezing compartment in the refrigerator in those days was ( a little, small area, well it had two shelves, no one shelf, dividing it into two compartments, like, and very narrow just down the side and so it didn't hold very much and you didn't freeze much. And then Mr. Discher started a freezing plant and we could rent lockers in it and that was quite a help because we froze our strawberries and we froze our raspberries and we froze peas and we froze e<<Dr.n,.and we could buy meat and put it in there and that ran -for quite awhile until the manufacturing of home freezers came out, you see. And as the refrigerators improved then they had the freezing compartment on top and that. But before we use to, well we still, I made my own jams and jellies until I came up here, until I retired as you say. B.B.: How much did it cost to rent a freezer? F. Y.: A locker, I forget, but now , I think, it was twelve dollars for a year but they varied on the size of the freezer and he had quite a big amount of space, freezer space there. B.B.: ( Where was this located? F. Y.: It was located down on the corner of Prospect Pt. Road and Hibbard Street . It now has been torn down and I don't know what it's used for now. 16 �I think there use to be a mill there, too which he ran and it had been there, apparently it had been a town landmark, it had been there for years, and a regular grist mill. B.B.: What is a grist mill? F. Y.: Well, it would grind up the grains, the various grains, you see there. It was quite a thriving business. B.B.: Is there anything else as you reflect ba ck that ? ••• F.Y.: Well, as I reflect back there were two men, a Mr. Millington and a Mr. Skerret who were related and who started a bus service from Crystal Beach down to Fort Erie before the Peace Bridge was built and they would take you to the ferry dock and then they would go across on the ferry to Buffalo and up the hill, you see. And that was the only way we had of getting over to Buffalo except by the train service. And cars went on the ferry, too. And I remember when the i ce would start down the river, the ferry, you would get down there waiting to get back on the ferry and they would say, " Well, as soon as this i ce flow gets by, well we'll stop , we'll start over", but it was an indefinite s chedule. And one time my husband and I about 1927, just before, the winter before the Peace Bridge ( opened anyway we went over to see a Shakespearian play at night, this was just before we were married that winter. And we got down to the ferry dock on the American side to come home and the ferry wasn't running. Well there was several cars waiting for the ferry. Well the ice was coming down so fast the ferry couldn't attempt it. Well we waited there, and we waited there as did so many others, until finally we drove and hit, there's no other way to get across but to drive down to Niagara Falls and we drove the American side down to Niagara Falls, a cross the bridge there and ba ck up home ••• the wee small hours by that time But then when the Peace Bridge opened in 1927, yes 1927 that made all the difference in the world to getting over to Buffalo. Then a regular bus service began and took us ri�ht over, a cross the Peace Bridge and over you see and for a good many years we had good bus service between Crystal Beach. And then it developed from Welland to Port Colborne, Crystal Beach to Ridgeway and over to Buffalo. ( Well you went about on ce a week to browse, go to a show, Laube's Old Spain to have lunch and so on. But the opening of the Peach Bridge was a wonderful thing for 17 �here and my grandmother was alive then and neighbours took her across for her first drive across the Peace Bridge and she had them stop in the middle of the bridge and she said, " You know I never ( thought I'd see this day because in my day there was always dreams of a bridge going across but oh, it couldn't be done on account of the current! And I really think that was one of the biggest thrills of her life, was to drive down, across on that Peace Bridge. B.B.: Well, thank you Mrs. Young. ( 18 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Crystal Beach Subject The topic of the resource Crystal Beach, Ontario Description An account of the resource Select historical photos and documents digitized from the Fort Erie local history and Louis McDermott collections Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived FEPL -LH - Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library and Louis McDermott Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Beverly Branton Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Orpha Young Location The location of the interview. Ridgewood Manor, Ridgeway Original Format If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Cassette tape Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral History - Young, Orpha Description An account of the resource Provided here is Orpha Young's interview. She discusses such topics as: Farming Technology Schools Ridgeway Fire Department Technology World War II The Depression Medicine Railroad Crystal Beach Amusement Park Fleet Buffalo Point Abino Peace Bridge Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Fort Erie Public Library Local History Collection Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 16, 1985 1980s 1985 Buffalo Crystal Beach amusement park Fleet Fort Erie Great Depression Oral history peace bridge point abino railroad ridgeway schools technology transcripts world war II http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/11fb4bc93ba45e32e3f8260131b9e9a5.jpg c0695ea5f5aa566c6361952cce58a735 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fort Erie Description An account of the resource Images, documents, and other items of historical significance to the town of Fort Erie. Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Slide Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lighthouse, #3 Description An account of the resource Pictured here is the Point Abino Lighthouse. Built in 1917, the electronically powered light house was meant to prevent shipwrecks on the Point. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Fort Erie Public Library Local History Collection Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Undated Fort Erie point abino Point Abino lighthouse undated http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/bd3bf5f1cc8619a978d69e16244ecac9.jpg 4b82c58e9ab8c373940d8ffb7fe5d104 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fort Erie Description An account of the resource Images, documents, and other items of historical significance to the town of Fort Erie. Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Slide Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lighthouse, #4 Description An account of the resource Pictured here is the Point Abino Lighthouse. Built in 1917, the electronically powered light house was meant to prevent shipwrecks on the Point. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Fort Erie Public Library Local History Collection Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Undated Fort Erie point abino Point Abino lighthouse undated http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/901a990fffd9a6c02165fa1345f9e9d4.jpg 16908fdd060a65d8cd0a631e2f7c50f4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fort Erie Description An account of the resource Images, documents, and other items of historical significance to the town of Fort Erie. Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Slide Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lighthouse, #5 Description An account of the resource Pictured here is the Point Abino Lighthouse. Built in 1917, the electronically powered light house was meant to prevent shipwrecks on the Point. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Fort Erie Public Library Local History Collection Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Undated Fort Erie point abino Point Abino lighthouse undated http://www.fepl.ca/localhistory/files/original/3e80700961dfd24069dc2aab338b63fc.jpg a3e99904fdb956b0c1b53f2e979d3327 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fort Erie Description An account of the resource Images, documents, and other items of historical significance to the town of Fort Erie. Language A language of the resource English Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fort Erie Public Library Still Image A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials. Original Format If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Slide Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lighthouse, #6 Description An account of the resource Pictured here is the Point Abino Lighthouse. Built in 1917, the electronically powered light house was meant to prevent shipwrecks on the Point. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Fort Erie Public Library Local History Collection Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource Undated Fort Erie point abino Point Abino lighthouse undated