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.

HSM offers talk on history of Denver-Vega Valley July 14

HSM offers talk on history of Denver-Vega Valley July 14

Jul 2, 2024 | 2024 News, Events

An illustrated talk, “Homesteads to Go-Karts: A History of the Denver-Vega Valley,” will be presented at the Middletown History Center in Margaretville July 14 at 1 p.m.

This is the second of five ‘Second Sunday’ events sponsored by the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown, whose president, Diane Galusha will be the speaker. Admission is by donation. The History Center is located at 778 Cemetery Rd., Margaretville.

The program, first delivered to Roxbury Senior Citizens in 2023, describes the hamlets of Denver and Vega and the farms, schools, churches, stores and post offices around which valley life centered.

The talk will span 270 years, beginning with land leases of early homesteaders in the 1790s, and stretching to the Denver Go-Kart Speedway of the 1960s. Stories recounted in the program were taken from diaries, newspapers and other period sources, including former residents recorded by HSM and the Open Eye Theater in separate oral history projects.

This bucolic valley, which traverses Middletown and Roxbury, once had 50 farms, a creamery, three schools, two churches, an active Grange, a ski center, a hopping dance hall and several busy boarding houses. A fire decimated Vega in the 1930s, farms ceased operating, vacationers went elsewhere and the schools and general stores closed. Today the valley is the quiet home to many full-timers, retirees and weekend residents.

FMI: 845-586-4973 or history@catskill.net. Information about HSM events and programs can be found at mtownhistory.org.

This was the hamlet of Denver, with the general store at the intersection of Denver and Dimmick Mountain Roads, and the Finch farm on the hill.

HSM to open Middletown History Center

HSM to open Middletown History Center

Jun 5, 2024 | 2024 News, Events

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown will hold an Open House at the new Middletown History Center, 778 Cemetery Road, Margaretville, on Sunday, June 9 from 2 to 4 p.m.

The celebration will begin with a 2 p.m. ribbon cutting on the doorstep of the expanded facility which includes an archives and reading room named for HSM benefactor Nicholas J. Juried.

HSM President Diane Galusha will express appreciation for the many donors, volunteers and board members whose faith in and commitment to the organization’s mission resulted in this achievement. Middletown Supervisor Glen Faulkner and Margaretville Mayor John Hubbell will also share remarks.

The L-shaped addition was designed by Paul Gossen of Vega. General contractors were Cole & Griffin of Arkville. Twenty-four local contractors, tradesmen, craftspeople and suppliers lent their talents to the project.

The archives contains physical and digital photos, documents and other artifacts which will be accessible to researchers and genealogists in the coming months. Open House visitors are invited to see the climate-controlled storage and work room and the adjoining library and reading room where books and binders on local historical topics can be viewed.

The lobby of the addition features several special items. A map of Middletown, created and hand painted by local artists, pays tribute to the town’s 10 hamlets and villages. Beams from the oldest house in Margaretville frame the doorway into the program hall. The roll-top desk used by three generations of Catskill Mountain News publishers is on prominent display. And life-size photographs of two figures from Middletown’s past welcome visitors into the archives.

An office and an accessible rest room complete the lobby area. An artfully designed acknowledgment wall lists nearly 200 donors whose gifts, large and small, made the Middletown History Center possible.

Open House guests will enjoy libations in the program hall while viewing wall and cabinet displays showcasing items from the HSM collection.

The next program at the History Center will be July 14 at 1 p.m. when an illustrated talk on the history of the Denver-Vega Valley will be presented as the first in a series of four Second Sunday events.

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

Volunteer Randy Moore helps Deb Fleming of Sign Design in Delhi install the sign on the front of the new Middletown History Center. Steve Fleming is at left.

Carl Grocholl has been busy bringing to life the landscaping plan of Birgitta Brophy at the Middletown History Center on Cemetery Road, Maragretville. Come to the Open House Sunday (2 to 4 ) to see what they’ve achieved, including Carl’s gorgeous bluestone entryway!

Fires, floods focus of Margaretville walking tour May 18

Fires, floods focus of Margaretville walking tour May 18

May 6, 2024 | 2024 News

Margaretville is no stranger to disaster; fires and floods have periodically taken a toll on the village, changing its appearance, its make-up and its vibe.

On Saturday, May 18 at 11 a.m., the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown will host a one-hour walking tour of Main and Bridge Streets to explain the impact of disastrous fires and floods over more than a century.

Tour leader Diane Galusha will describe, through narrative and photos, how the community has rallied time and again to rise from mud and ashes and to reinvent its future.

Reservations for the walk are not necessary; admission is by donation. Meet at Binnekill Park opposite NBT bank on Main Street. Walkers are encouraged to have lunch afterward at one of several downtown eateries.

FMI: 845-586-4973 or history@catskill.net.

Information about HSM events and programs can be found at mtownhistory.org.