From GREATER WHEELING AND VICINITY
By Charles A. Winegerter, 1912; page 783.
     
Contributed by Linda Fluharty. 

     MATTHEW McDERMOTT, proprietor of the McDermott Tool Works, has been 
prominently identified with the business life of Martins Ferry for many 
years. He belongs among the men who make the prosperity of a city, creating 
and offering opportunities to the many who must depend on the leadership of 
such independent men. Mr. McDermott came out of the ranks himself, lifting 
himself to the higher responsibilities by an inherent ability and a steady 
industry that have been substantially rewarded. 
     This business was started in 1892, with six employes, and the full 
operating force is now thirty-five, showing how the industry has been 
developed in twenty years. The site of the McDermott works was purchased from 
the Hoyle-Jones Company, the former threshing machine manufacturers, and was 
remodeled for the tool works. Mr. E. H. McDermott was formerly associated 
with the business, but for some years Mr. Matthew McDermott has been the sole 
proprietor. The equipment at his plant includes four lathes, one planer, a 
shaper, a drill press, an upright slanter, four steam hammers, a sand bottom 
furnace and four forges, and with these facilities a skilled force of men are 
engaged in he making of forgings of all kinds, designs and sizes and the 
production If drilling tools and fishing tools for artesian wells, besides a 
variety of machine work. 
     Mr. McDermott, the proprietor of this model establishment, was born in 
Ireland in August, 1849, and is a son of Peter and Winifred (Bruin) 
McDermott. His father, a wheelwright by trade, brought the family to America 
when Matthew was but a child, and located at Brantford, Ontario. There the 
son grew up and received his early education, and when he was eighteen years 
old he came to the United States. His trade of blacksmith he acquired in 
Brantford, Ontario, and worked in the locomotive shops at Meadville and Erie, 
Pennsylvania, and in 1868 he went to Titusville, Pennsylvania. He was in the 
Pennsylvania oil fields as a practical tool maker and has followed this line 
of activity more or less to the present time. He later moved to Martins Ferry 
and established the present industry. About 1887 he left the Pennsylvania oil 
fields to accept a position as superintendent for Ireland & Hughes, one of 
the largest oil tool supply firms in the United States, remaining with this 
firm about three years, when he purchased a half interest in a tool and 
machine shop and later sold his interest and located in Martins Ferrv, as 
above stated. 
     Mr. McDermott and his family are members of the Catholic church and he 
affiliates with the Knights of Columbus. In politics he is an independent 
voter, and as a citizen is an interested supporter of all movements for the 
advancement of his home city. He married, in 1884, Miss Charlotte Salsgiver, 
daughter of George Salsgiver, of Tionesta, Pennsylvania. Their family 
includes nine children, two of them now deceased, and the seven living are: 
Peter, Edward, Winifred, Harry, Emmett, Gerald and Reginald.