MATEER, CALVIN WILSON: Presbyterian missionary; b. in Cumberland Co., near Mechanicsburg, Pa., Jan. 9, 1836; d. at Tsingtau, Shantung Province, China, Sept. 28, 1908. He was graduated at the head of his class in Jefferson College, 1857; was principal of Beaver, Pa., Academy, 1857-59; studied in the Western Theological Seminary (Presbyterian), Allegheny, Pa., in 1859-61, and was graduated with the class of 1861. He had already been accepted as a missionary by the Old School Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, but lack of funds preventing the board from sending him out at once he was stated supply of the Presbyterian church at Delaware, O., from 1861 till 1863, when, in company with Hunter Corbett (b. at Leatherwood, Pa., December 8, 1835; graduated at Jefferson College, 1860; studied in Western Theological Seminary 1860-62, graduated at Princeton Theological Seminary 18$3, since 1866 missionary at Chefoo, moderator of the General Assembly in 1906), he sailed for China. The voyage was long and the bearing of the captain insulting. He exchanged the ship at Shanghai for a steamer and got into a storm and was wrecked near Chefoo, which happily was their destination, and after a night of suffering they safely arrived there. He was settled at Teng Chow, the port of Shantung, a province as large as the State of Pennsylvania, and remained there till 1904, when he went to live at Wei-Hsien. In 1864 he laid the foundation of a school out of which there was formally organized in 1878 a col-
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He was a missionary of the grand type, devoted to his work, a master of the language of the people he lived among and for whom he lived, and willing to be spent in their service, for he was home on furlough only three times. He was an extraordinarily versatile man, learning easily whatever he studied and able to impart his knowledge or turn it to practical account. Thus he was very skilful in the use of tools, understood machinery, even the latest application of electricity, and made much of the apparatus used in the college. In 1870 he was superintendent of the American Presbyterian Mission Press in Shanghai. At the same time he was a born teacher, writing text-books in mathematics and the famous "Lessons in Mandarin" which are widely used. Besides administering a college and preaching regularly and eloquently both in Chinese and English he was chairman of the committee for the revision of the Mandarin translation of the Bible, Mandarin being the dialect of Shantung. The New Testament was taken in hand in 1890 and finished in 1906, when the Old Testament was at once taken up but only the book of Genesis and part of the Psalms had been revised at his death. This labor was his last. He had been doing it at Chefoo, where he was spending the summer. As he had been suffering from dysentery he concluded that it would be better on his way back to Wei-Hsien to stop at the German hospital at Tsingtau for treatment. This he did, but his disease had passed beyond cure.
He was twice married, but had no children. His first wife was Miss Julia A. Brown of Delaware, O., whom he married in 1863 and who died in 1898. She was a most efficient coadjutor in educational work. His second wife was Miss Ada Haven, at the time of her marriage in 1900 a missionary of the American Board at Peking. She was equally helpful in his literary work.
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