The following is a  transcription of a page 1  article in the 26 Jan 1911 Simcoe Reformer. 

Death of M. R. Steele

Mr. M. R. Steele who was a former citizen of Simcoe, passed away at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. James W. Moe, of the City of Toronto, on Jan. 17th, 1911, in his seventy-fifth years.

Mathias Robert Steele came of old pioneer stock. His grandfather, Mathias Steele, for whom he was named, came to Simcoe (then Birdtown) over one hundred years old, from Niagara District. His store just over the Lynn was made the point of attack, plundered and burned in the year 1812 by the American soldiers. Relics of that fire are still in the possession of some of the members of the family.

Deceased was a member of the Methodist Church and was made a Mason in Norfolk No. 10 A. F. & A. M. when quite a young man and at the time of his death was an active members of Zeta Lodge, A. F. & A. M. in the City of Toronto, also a member of Sherwood Forest Lodge No. 3105, Independent Order of Foresters. 

There remain to mourn his departure five daughters, Mrs. Jonathan Austin, Lynn Valley, Mrs. Col. T. R. Atkinson, Mrs. E. L. Hedgson, of Simcoe, Mrs. J. W. Moe, and Mrs. J. Gordon Emery, of Toronto.

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