George E Matteson and His Maps

Join us for this informative evening featuring George E. Matteson's maps, beautifully illustrated with local landmarks, legends, and folklore. His maps hang in pictorial map collections locally and abroad, bringing us all twinges of nostalgia. George Matteson was from Scituate and Coventry. He was a forest ranger for over 40 years and served as a search and rescue specialist taking part in thousands of rescues of lost hunters and hikers, 100 plane crash rescue missions and myriad forest fire patrols. He would fly over forest fires, drawing quick maps of the terrain, landmarks, trails and roads, which were dropped by parachute to ground crews to aid them in reaching the heart of a fire. Did you know his father drove a hitch of a dozen or more horses for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus? In collaboration with George Matteson’s grandson, Paul St. Amand, conscientious custodian of his grandfather’s extraordinary collection, the SCITUATE PRESERVATION SOCIETY will present a program to reveal more about this mapmaker who spent a lifetime surveying the backwoods, digging into local legends, and preserving our rich history. Join us for a great program, and view Matteson’s myriad maps-some rarely displayed.