Langley Centennial Museum
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Object Description
Object ID
2190
Title
Samuel and Amanda Mathews admiring a winter scene.
Date
[between 1930 and 1950].
Description
Samuel and Amanda Mathews admiring the winter scene in the Murrayville area.
People/Subject
Mathews, Amanda E. (nee Morgan)
Mrs. Amanda Elizabeth (nee Morgan) was born in 1892 in England. She arrived in Langley from Buxton, Derbyshire, England with her husband Samuel Mathews in March 1930. She was a graduate nurse. She helped in the Cash Grocery store until the business was sold. She was an active, long time member of the Gospel Hall congregation. She died in February 1973 at the age of 81.
Mathews, Samuel Edward
Samuel Edward Mathews was born in 1893 in England. Mr. S. E. Mathews arrived in Langley from Buxton, Derbyshire, England on March 30 with his wife Amanda E. and their three boys Peter Henry (age 7), Frank Samuel (age 6), and Stephen (age 4). The depression and lack of employment in England forced Samuel Mathew to immigrate to Canada. They chose Langley because they had been given free accommodation by his brother Herbert Mathews. Samuel was trained in the grocery business and was a traveling salesman, who took orders and did deliveries etc. His first job was painting the Milner Food Market and he also picked rocks in Mufford's farm fields. Samuel decided to start his own grocery business when the Murrayville Cash Grocery came up for rent. He ran his store by offering no credit (cash only); taking orders and delivering them; servicing areas not being served; and accepting payment in the form of fresh produce. He acquired the lot on the south-west corner of the five corners intersection and by 1934 built the new store. This building is now known as the Mathew's Cash Grocery, or the Bishop House.
Murrayville (B.C.)
Paul Murray was born in Ireland in 1811 and immigrated to Canada with his family at the age of eighteen. the Murray family settled in Oxford County, Ontario, and ten years later Paul married Lucy Bruce. They bought land in Zorra and had seven children together. In May 1874, after his children were grown, Paul left Ontario and relocated in B.C., accompanied by three of his sons. Their first home in Langley was a roughly built shelter they made for themselves from a gigantic fir tree, and after his wife and two of hisdaughters arrived, they all lived there together. After these humble beginnings, Murray opened a hotel on Old Yale Road to service travelers making their way into the interior, building up a reputation as one of the finest carpenters in the area. The corner where the hotel was eventually came to be known as Murray's Corners, as the family had 160 acres of land on each corner. Murray's Corners eventually came to be known as Murrayville, and all of Paul's sons worked on Old Yale Road, building more hotels and other businesses to increase commerce. Paul was an ordained church elder, dring a time when there were no official churches and services were held in a small schoolhouse on the corner of Glover Road and Old Yale Road. Holding the title of founder of Murrayville, Paul Murray died in 1903. Murray's Corners did not officially become Murrayville until 1911, when the local post office changed its name to Murrayville Post Office.
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Argus v4.3.6.40 - Langley Centennial Museum