Speakeasies, bootleggers and One-Arm Joe

Mar 3, 2016 | news archive

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown will offer its first program of the season this Saturday, March 19 when HSM President Diane Galusha will take a look at how Prohibition affected the region in the 1920s and ‘30s.

“Speakeasies, Bootleggers and One-Arm Joe,” is an informal presentation to be held at the new Union Grove Distillery, NYS Route 28 and County Road 38, beginning at 4 p.m. Admission is $2 for HSM members, $4 for non-members. A free tour of the distillery will follow the presentation.

Though craft distilleries like Union Grove have proliferated in recent years with the growing popularity of locally sourced spirits, there was a time when making and selling alcoholic beverages was illegal in the US. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the production, transport and sale (though not the private possession or consumption) of alcohol from January of 1920 until the amendment was repealed in December of 1933.

This attempt to legislate commerce and morality was a spectacular failure. The March 19 program will feature stories of how area entrepreneurs, hotel keepers and farmers defied the law, figuring out how to make a buck from a banned substance.

Newspaper articles and personal accounts will tell of speakeasies like the Margaretville establishment run by “One Arm Joe” DePuysselier; the brewery disguised as a produce market in Gilboa; the liquor emporium George Robinson kept at the Arcadian House hotel in Arena; the wild-west apprehension of a bootlegger in Downsville by the local Methodist minister, and many more.

Tea-time with Emma, and “Suffrage” film April 30

Tea-time with Emma, and “Suffrage” film April 30

Mar 3, 2016 | news archive

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown and Fairview Public Library will collaborate on a program focused on women’s suffrage Saturday, April 30.

“Tea Time with Emma,” a classic afternoon tea with sweets, sandwiches and yes, Earl Grey tea, will start at 3 p.m. at Stick in the Mud in the Bussy Building on Margaretville’s Main Street. Those attending will meet Emma Keeney (above left), a local boarding house proprietor, who was a Margaretville activist in the movement to achieve the right to vote for women.

Emma will be portrayed by Connie Jeffers (above right), who will exhort participants to encourage their political representatives to allow women the right to vote in local, state and national elections.

Prior to the tea, the acclaimed film “Suffragette,” starring Meryl Streep, will be screened at 1 p.m. at Fairview Library next door to the Bussy Building.

Both film and tea are by reservation only: $25 for both, $20 for tea alone. Call 845-586-2860 by April 25 to claim your seats.

Scones, sandwiches and biscuits will be served by hostess Lizzie Douglas at this “suffrage tea” at Stick in the Mud, patterned after a fundraising event from 1914.

Connie Jeffers of Margaretville will portray Emma Keeney, the proprietor of Meadowbrook Farm and boarding house, who was a noted activist in the women’s suffrage movement from 1914 to 1917, when New York State granted women the right to vote three years before the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution made this the law of the land in 1920.

Meadowbrook Farm was a well-known and popular tourist haunt on South Side Road, Margaretville where Emma hosted monthly meetings of the Margaretville Equal Suffrage Club.

For more information on this program, call 845-586-4973

Emma Keeney, 1903

Connie Jeffers, aka Emma Keeney

Message from 1909

Message from 1909

Feb 9, 2016 | Tin Horn

This postcard image of a house in Margaretville was sent to Mrs. Laura Fowler in Prattsville by someone who wrote on the front: “Do you recognize these two old friends, J.H.S. and L.H K.? Margaretville, April 18, 1909. I hope you are well. We are well as usual.”

Who are these ladies, and where is this house?

Could it be the Woolheater house on Maple St., Margaretville? Your thoughts?
Thanks to Roger Davis for sharing the postcard.

Feb. 20, 2016:
Guess it’s not the Woolheater house! Shirley Elliott, daughter of Doug Kelly, believes the old house to be one that stood on the site of a Main St., Margaretville building her father constructed as an ag and equipment sales store. She provided the name of Jennie Searles (J.S.) which Roger Davis researched and found to have been born in Prattsville in 1858 and died in Kingston in 1949. She lived in Margaretville with Miss Lydia A. (H.?) King at the house on the site of the old Douglas Kelly building, now an apartment house and office of a chiropractor.

The Woolheater house remains of interest — we’ll continue to research it.

“American Idol” 1949

“American Idol” 1949

Dec 13, 2015 | Tin Horn

Do you remember when TV was in its infancy, in the late 1940s and early 1950s? If you were a kid then (and your family actually owned a TV!) you may recall “Teen-Age Barn,” a popular variety show on WRGB from Schenectady that featured young, local talent.

It debuted on April 4, 1949 when there were only 17,000 television sets in the capital district area. It held a Friday night prime time slot, and by 1959 was the oldest locally produced variety show in the nation. In 1962 the show went to a full hour, and the following year was renamed simply “The Barn.” After 17 years, the Barn doors closed Jan. 29, 1966.

Troupes of Teen-Age Barn alumni were formed to present live shows at local auditoriums and fairs, a sort of forerunner to today’s “American Idol” format. In 1953, the Channel 6 road show appeared three times in the area, July 9 at Margaretville Central School sponsored by the Margaretville Fire Dept., Sept. 11 at MCS sponsored by the Presbyterian Church, and in late September at Onteora Central School sponsored by the senior class.

Admission was $1. A poster for the July event turned up at McIntosh Auction recently. It includes photos of dancer Arlene Fontana, and ventriloquist Richard Cohen as featured performers. A story in the Catskill Mountain News indicated that the MFD show was “the second benefit program sponsored by the firemen to replace their former carnival.” They must have returned to the carnival as it remains the biggest money-maker for MFD today.

Does anyone remember these shows? Did anyone perform in them?