PRESERVATION PROJECTS:

Farming

 

Since 2004, the Central Catskills Chamber of Commerce has been celebrating the region’s heritage as a principal cauliflower growing area by coordinating an annual Cauliflower Festival in Margaretville. HSM has participated by filling a History Tent with exhibits and information on the agricultural history and farm culture of Middletown and vicinity. Our collection includes implements, records, photographs and other proof of when “cauliflower was king’ (1890s-1950).

In 2007, with just three operating dairy farms left in the Town of Middletown, HSM set out to try to map as many family farms as could be recalled by area elders. Coordinator Ira McIntosh gathered information from Bud Barnes (Arkville), Bill Sanford (Halcottsville), Esther Snyder (Denver), Hilton Kelly (Redkill), Leonard Utter (Millbrook), Lester Rosa (Dry Brook) and Fran Faulkner (New Kingston), who came up with 188 farms they remembered from the late 1940s-1950 era. A map of these farms and a key to their owners of more than 60 years ago was the result. See below

Dairy farmers needed a market for their milk, and they found it at the many creameries that operated throughout Middletown and neighboring towns. A 2009 project to document the locations and operations of these important businesses yielded a map, photographs of and information on about 20 creameries and milk processing plants in Arena, Arkville, Dunraven, Halcottsville, Kelly Corners, Margaretville, Clovesville, Halcott, Vega and Roxbury. This project was exhibited at the Cauliflower Festival, and at the Town Hall.

When dairy farming was the primary way of life in Middletown, barns dominated the landscape. But with agriculture’s decline, most barns have followed suit, and have either been bulldozed for new structures or laid low by fire or the elements. Today, a few barns remain actively used in farming operations. Others have been artfully adapted for other uses: The Kelly Brothers round barn near Halcottsville has found new life as the home of the Pakatakan Farmers Market. And a lucky few have been preserved by owners with the passion, and the means, to keep them standing.

But more often than not, barns and other farm outbuildings once so critical to the farm economy have gone unused for decades, languishing in a suspended state of history, waiting for heavy snow, or high winds to bring the deteriorated structures down.

HSM has watched with alarm and sadness as these icons of our agrarian past have slowly disappeared. In 2009 and 2010 volunteers conducted a photographic survey of standing barns and collected information on their histories and current owners. (This information is available upon request.) The ensuing years have witnessed the ultimate demise of many of the structures we documented.

MIDDLETOWN FARM MAP, c. 1950

This map was produced by Ira McIntosh who in 2006 worked with local elders in each section of town to identify the locations of dairy farms that were operating in the late 1940s-early 1950s. It shows 187 family farms. In 2015, there were just two dairy farms still operating — Elliotts and Grays — both in the New Kingston Valley.

Thanks to Larry Kelly at the Catskill Watershed Corp. for producing the large map of the Town of Middletown. We apologize for errors in locations, spellings or for those we inadvertently omitted. We regret, too, that we could not list the names of the spouses of the men shown as owners of these farms, as women (and children!) were equally important in their operation.

 

KEY TO MIDDLETOWN FARM MAP
AREAS OF THE MAP ARE COLOR CODED:

NEON PINK (bottom of map): Millbrook/Arena
TURQUOISE: Dunraven/Huckleberry Brook
ORANGE: Margaretville/Arkville/Dry Brook
GREEN: New Kingston Valley
LIGHT BLUE: Fleischmanns/Clovesville/Redkill/Hog Mountain
PINK: Halcottsville/Hubbell Hill/Kelly Corners/Denver 

Click on this map to link to a higher resolution, click-to-zoom in view.

MILLBROOK / ARENA
(neon pink)

 

  1. Howard Graham
  2. George Green
  3. George Clum
  4. James Fairbairn
  5. Walter Braisland
  6. Clarence Pierce
  7. Tom Beardsley
  8. Harry Beardsley
  9. Bill Beardsley
  10. Bill Young
  11. Hubertus White
  12. Herb Irish
  13. Jim Alton
  14. Earl Storey
  15. Bill Close
  16. Percy Haddow
  17. Eldred Shaver
  18. Art Lane
  19. Burton Hall
  20. Eugene Wickham, Jr.
  21. Eugene Slade
  22. Aubrey DeSilva
  23. Hugh Ramp
  24. Walter Banks
  25. Ransom DeSilva
  26. Harley Kittle
  27. Len Utter
  28. Will Franks
  29. Stanley Sidorowicz, Sr.
  30. Grant Becker
  31. George Robinson

______________

DUNRAVEN /
HUCKLEBERRY BROOK
(including Ben Meeker
and Jones Hollow Roads)
(turquoise)

 

  1. Ben Meeker
  2. Laszlo Toth
  3. Don Fairbairn
  4. Monroe Faulkner
  5. Bruce Kelly
  6. Avery Ryer
  7. Robert McMurray
  8. Pete Cramer
  9. Robert Dickman
  10. George McMurray
  11. Ben Fairbairn
  12. Howard Fairbairn
  13. Frank Brannen
  14. Halbert Utter
  15. Albert Hoznagle
  16. Bill Dumond
  17. James Utter
         (Ed Gavette
         bought 1946)
  18. Orin Marks
  19. Harry Franks
  20. Everett Pangman

______________

MARGARETVILLE /
ARKVILLE /
DRY BROOK

(orange)

 

  1. David Todd
  2. Winton Streeter
  3. Orville Rosa
  4. Dalton Sanford
  5. Ray Marks
  6. Ralph Scott
  7. William Sanford
  8. Albertus White
  9. John Sanford
  10. Calvin Davis
  11. Howard Davis
  12. Glen Vermilyea
         (mistakenly not
         numbered on map)
  13. Dayton Searles
  14. Leroy Scott
  15. Helmut Rosenheim
  16. Morton Scudder
  17. Bruce Archibald
  18. Randolph George
  19. August Filupeit
  20. Earl Vermilyea
  21. Kenneth George
  22. Joseph Avery
  23. Arthur White
  24. Miller Fairbairn
  25. Ernest Wranovics
  26. John Vermilyea

______________

NEW KINGSTON
VALLEY

(green)

 

  1. Frank Trowbridge
  2. Olney Smith
  3. Robert Van Keuren
  4. Paul Oravetz
  5. Palmer Adee /
         Karl Amor
  6. Lloydrick and
         Telford Butler
  7. Howard Ruff
  8. Harold Faulkner
  9. Harry DeSilva
  10. William Miller
  11. Roland VanBenschoten
  12. Eric Stange
  13. Hugh Robertson
  14. Bruce Kelly
  15. George Sanford
  16. Myron Sanford
  17. J. William Tweedie
  18. John Tuttle /
         Douglas Hoy
  19. John Lewis /
         Earl Cronin
  20. Nelson Gray
  21. James Elliott
  22. Dave Crawford
  23. Pryse Terry
  24. Douglas Condon
  25. Frank Long
  26. Kenneth Robertson
  27. Ralph Faulkner
  28. Albert Wickham
  29. John Ingles
  30. Lloyd O’Connor
  31. Harry O’Connor
  32. George Jensen
  33. Clarence Barkman
  34. Adriano Lanzi
  35. Karola Mueller
  36. Ken Sanford
  37. Marshall Sanford

______________

FLEISCHMANNS /
CLOVESVILLE /
REDKILL /
HOG MOUNTAIN

(light blue)

  1. Jacob Timichuk
  2. ? Lockus
  3. John Mariotti
  4. Richard Finch
  5. Everett Hanley
  6. Everett Ellis
  7. Werner Andregg
  8. Saul Markle
  9. Julius Seuther
  10. George Pruzinsky
  11. Arthur Blish
  12. Bruce Craft
  13. Harold Vermilyea
  14. Henry Todd
  15. Gilbert Streeter
  16. Roy Kelly
  17. Abel Fuller
  18. Kenneth Kelly
  19. Harris Whitken
  20. Albert Thompson
  21. Isaac Kaplan
  22. Berdine Streeter
  23. Marshall Osterhoudt
  24. Frank Kelly
  25. Hillis Judd
  26. Dominick Menarri
  27. Charles Mech
  28. William Morrison
  29. Bruce Scudder
  30. Charles Morse

______________

HALCOTTSVILLE /
HUBBELL HILL /
KELLY CORNERS /
DENVER

(pink)

  1. Aaron Sluiter
  2. Philo Benedict
  3. Leon Hull
  4. Alex Kapitko
  5. Virgil Lasher
  6. Nick Duboveck
  7. Tony Walzack
  8. Randolph George
  9. Bill Stahl
  10. Alfred Metzner
  11. Hess (or) Sprague
  12. Aggie Adler
  13. Cornelius Kelly
  14. Jim Stoutenberg
  15. Hanford Shultis
  16. Leon Woolheater
  17. Herb Raeder
  18. Leonard ‘Pete’ Gray
  19. Arnold Cartwright
  20. John Walker
  21. Delvern Kelly
  22. Eli and Leo Finch
  23. Leonil Mead
  24. Howard Lawrence
  25. Marshall Adee
  26. John Sprague
  27. William Petozky
  28. John Logwin
  29. Hubbell Brothers
  30. Dave Mead
  31. Chester Mead
  32. Kelly Brothers
  33. Lloyd Eignor
  34. David Earl
  35. Loren Rowe
  36. John Biruk
  37. Andy Moldovan
  38. George Townsend
  39. Elmer Bussy
  40. Bruce Rowe
  41. Joe Wranovics
  42. Melvin Stahl
  43. George Jaquish

______________

FARMING PHOTO GALLERY
Click for a larger view of each image…