HSM elects trustees, hears annual report

HSM elects trustees, hears annual report

Nov 7, 2024 | 2024 News

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) held its annual meeting of members and friends November 2, when Gary Smith was re-elected to the Board and Iris Mead was voted in as a new trustee.

Their terms will run for three years. Mead fills the seat vacated by the departing Agnes Laub. Others on the HSM board are Pat Moore, Josef Schoell, Doris Warner, Eli Taylor, Michael Fairbairn and Diane Galusha.

The winner of the wooden bench made and donated by craftsman Mike Porter was Mary McGrane of Margaretville.

Trustee Eli Taylor shared his research on “The Lost Battalion” of WWI, and provided brief profiles of five Middletown men who served during the war in unusual units, ranging from balloon surveillance to Northwest timber harvesting. He appeared in uniform and displayed some of the accoutrements of the American Doughboy during the conflict.

Treasurer Pat Moore provided a report on the organization’s finances and noted that HSM is well positioned to follow up its recent building addition with the renovation of the Middletown History Center’s kitchen in 2025.

President Diane Galusha said the June opening of the Center and the Nicholas J. Juried Archives was “the embodiment of its founding members’ faith in this organization to save our history, explain what it means and why it matters, and to have fun learning about how we got to this place in time.”

Among the Society’s accomplishments over the past 20 years were the preservation of more than 80 years of the Catskill Mountain News which is available online for anyone anywhere to read and research; the presentation of more than 130 lectures, programs, history hikes, films, musical programs, exhibits and tours; the transcription of hundreds of headstones in many cemeteries, and the production of 50 issues of the Bridge newsletter as well as a dynamic website ”filled with stories and photos you won’t find anyplace else.”

Added Galusha, “I am proud to say that today we have an operational archives where thousands of items are protected and interpreted for posterity. Every month more people recognize the intrinsic value of historical items and entrust their treasures to our care. It is a big responsibility, but it’s why HSM was established two decades ago.”

She encouraged people to contact HSM at 845-586-2400 to discuss or arrange donations of historic materials to the archives.

For information on HSM, along with historical articles and photos and to join or donate electronically, visit mtownhistory.org.

Re-elected HSM Board members Gary Smith with newly elected Board member Iris Mead.

HSM holds archives open house, seeks donation of historical materials

Oct 4, 2024 | 2024 News

MARGARETVILLE – The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) will welcome visitors to the Nicholas J. Juried Archives Sunday, Oct. 13 from 1 to 4, when it will also accept donations of materials to add to its collection.

Those who can’t come at that time may make an appointment to do research or donate at 845-586-2400 or historicalsocietyofmiddletown@gmail.com.

Located at the newly expanded Middletown History Center, 778 Cemetery Rd., Margaretville, the archives preserves documents, photographs and remnants of the town’s past so that future generations may understand its unique history. From maps to business records, postcards to paintings, family genealogies to farm account books, the archives can be considered “Middletown’s attic,” says HSM President Diane Galusha.

“We are honored to protect these things because they tell the stories of people who have lived, worked and died here,” Galusha commented. “Now that we have adequate climate-controlled storage and work space, we are actively looking for more items to add to the collection. If people have materials related to Middletown and neighboring areas, like Hardenburgh or Halcott, and they don’t know what to do with them, please bring them to the archives!”

Many physical items will be on display during the open house, a National Archives Month event. Visitors may also see digital records and information available on the HSM computer. These include files on individual properties in Arena and Dunraven taken for the Pepacton Reservoir, photographs, diaries, deeds and community history compilations.

The digital collection was recently augmented with the addition of scans of 25 individual issues of area newspapers dating back to 1864. The originals and microfilm reels are stored in the archives, while the scanned versions can now be safely read and searched.

For more information on HSM and its programs, visit mtownhistory.org.

“Private Side of History” readings in Margaretville Sept. 8

“Private Side of History” readings in Margaretville Sept. 8

Sep 11, 2024 | 2024 News, Events

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) will stage an informal reading from a dozen diaries, letters, and memoirs in a Second Sunday program at the Middletown History Center September 8 at 1 p.m.

The Center is at 778 Cemetery Road, Margaretville. Admission is by donation.

“The Private Side of History” features four local residents reading excerpts from diaries and letters written between 1863 and 1960, and from memoirs written and recorded more recently.

Readers will be Bill Birns of Fleischmanns, John Exter of New Kingston, Tina Greene of Dry Brook and Annie Pevear of New Kingston.

Revealing their hopes, loves, pranks, aspirations, worries and everyday activities are the following former Middletown residents: Dry Brook hunter Nina Kittle Haynes, man about town James Utter, farmers Willard Hendricks and Will Tuttle, artist Arabella Locke Wyant, New Kingston mother Elizabeth Forrest Scott, Halcottsville sisters Nettie and Sarah Kelly, Margaretville constable George Gilbert, hotel keeper Lore Heppenheimer, four-time Fleischmanns mayor Heinz Pasternak and Charles Snyder, Jr., remembering Arkville of the 1920s.

For information on HSM programs and activities, along with historical articles and photos, visit mtownhistory.org.

Nina and Orson Haynes at Hermit’s Cave, Haynes Hollow

Milk strike exhibit at Cauliflower Festival

Milk strike exhibit at Cauliflower Festival

Sep 11, 2024 | 2024 News

MARGARETVILLE – The turbulent 1930s will be recalled at the Cauliflower Festival September 21 with a display about recurring milk strikes in the History Tent of the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown.

The festival, held in the Margaretville village park, runs from 11 to 4; admission is free.

The History Tent features exhibits on the cauliflower growing industry which was an important adjunct to dairy farming in the region in the first half of the 20th century. Many local farmers supplemented their income from milk by raising and marketing ‘white gold’ as well as Brussels sprouts for the downstate market.

During the 1930s, some of those same farmers withheld their milk, dumping it in fields and roadways during protests over the price they were receiving for the product. These protests occasionally turned violent and often divided the farm community as striking farmers blocked neighbors from delivering their milk to local creameries.

The exhibits will be on view throughout the festival in the History Tent, which will include a plant sale, a Treasure Table of vintage items, merchandise and souvenirs, and raffle tickets for a hand made wooden bench.

For information on HSM activities and much more history, visit mtownhistory.org.

Author discusses history-based novel at August 11 talk in Margaretville

Author discusses history-based novel at August 11 talk in Margaretville

Jul 26, 2024 | 2024 News, Events

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) welcomes Halcott resident and author Peg DiBenedetto who will discuss and read from her book “Silver Dollar Girls” in a Second Sunday program at the Middletown History Center August 11 at 1 p.m.

The Center is at 778 Cemetery Road, Margaretville. Admission to the illustrated talk is by donation.

The book, published in 2023 by Full Court Press, is a combination of World War II history and a fictional family narrative set in a rural valley during the 2020 COVID lockdown.

DiBenedetto, the daughter of Ruth Frankling Reynolds, who had served with the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during the war, had been looking for a way to incorporate her mother’s aviation experiences into her writing, which heretofore had focused on nature essays and children’s stories.

 

The novel features a young woman, Mae, who flees New York City during the pandemic to her great-grandparents’ abandoned farmhouse in the Catskills. There she discovers a box of papers describing how her great-grandmother Ruth became a pilot at a young age and then joined the prestigious WASP. She, with over a thousand other women, contributed to the war effort by ferrying aircraft from factories to airfields. In the book, Mae learns the reason Ruth’s aviation history was kept quiet for decades.

Ruth Franckling grew up in Woodstock and graduated from Kingston High School when she was 16. She’d wanted to fly since childhood but couldn’t afford the lessons, so she worked at the Kingston Airport and got paid in air time. By the age of 21 she’d gotten her pilot’s license. Soon afterward she received her commercial rating and then her instructor’s certification, all of which contributed to her earning a spot in the brand new WASP program.

She married another pilot, Ward Reynolds. The duo kept a pair of Piper Cubs in a level field next to their Halcott farmhouse and flew regularly around the valley and beyond.

Using occurrences from her own youth on her family’s dairy farm, along with valley lore, DiBenedetto weaves in “Silver Dollar Girls” a realistic tale of friendship, hardship and the rewards of life in a rural farming town.

The book will be available for purchase at the August 11 talk.