Albert Rutherford of the Wayne County Historical Society Presents “Pro Baseball Player Christy Mathewson”

Mathewson had an outstanding major league career which ended in 1916 and still holds the National League record for total wins (373).  He was one of the first five players who were inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.

This program is a power-point presentation covering Mathewson’s baseball career with emphasis on its inception during the two seasons that he played at Honesdale.  Its narrator is the grandson of Frank Schuerholz, a Honesdale resident who was the first baseman on those Honesdale teams.

A little bit about our presenter Albert Rutherford:
A life-long resident of Honesdale, Pennsylvania, Albert G. “Ab” Rutherford has had a long-time interest in local history. He is a former mayor of Honesdale, a life member of the Wayne County Historical Society and is active in its speakers bureau, having addressed many area groups about people and events which have affected northeastern Pennsylvania and the Upper Delaware Valley.

For several years Ab provided the historical commentary on the Stourbridge Line rail excursions and, in period costume, has portrayed notable personalities from the past such as Benjamin Franklin, David Wilmot, and Horatio Allen. He has written many articles that have appeared as supplements to the Wayne County Historical Society’s quarterly newsletters, authored a biography of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice George Washington Woodward, and published a book covering the early years of the The Honesdale National Bank in commemoration of the bank’s 175th Anniversary.  Rutherford also acted as the US research assistant to British railroad historian Raymond State in connection with State’s The Pride and the Lion, which relates the history of those two early locomotives imported from England by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company in 1829. Ab has always had a keen interest in local sports history as well, which is how he came to research Christy Mathewson’s Honesdale years.

Rutherford is a graduate of Honesdale High School, the University of Scranton (B.S.), and the Dickinson School of Law (J. D.) He is a recently-retired fourth-generation attorney who practiced law for over fifty years in Honesdale in the family firm of Rutherford, Rutherford and Wood, which at various times over the past hundred years has included his grandfather, Albert, his uncle, Ira, his father, James, his daughter, Sherry, and his wife, Sally.