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1950s CMNews now online

Jan 25, 2012 | news archive

HSM is pleased to report that the latest batch of Catskill Mountain News microfilm has been scanned and posted online. They run from Sept. 2, 1949 through Jan. 28, 1955. What a wealth of history these newspapers contain! And they’re searchable! http://history.catskill.net

Phase 1 of this project involved microfilming and digitizing bound volumes of the CMN from 1902-1937. The second phase is digitizing microfilm of the years 1938-73 held by the NYS Library. The work is being done by Hudson Microimaging in Port Ewen, in cooperation with Northern New York Library Association. Funding for the current phase has been generously provided by the O’Connor Foundation of Hobart and an anonymous donor.

The next five years – through 1960 – is expected to be available by spring.

HSM has a new home!

Jan 16, 2012 | news archive

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM), established in 2005, finally has a home of its own, thanks to the generosity of the New Kingston Valley Grange (NKVG).

The Grange has donated its clubhouse and seven acres on Cemetery Road, Margaretville, to HSM which will use it for programming, special events, exhibits and office space.

NKVG Master Marian Schimmel emphasized that the Grange, which has occupied the site since 1994, is not disbanding. Its members will continue to meet at the Margaretville-New Kingston Presbyterian Church.

“Although we are a little saddened at leaving our hall, we are happy to be turning it over to the HSM and wish them a long and fruitful occupancy,” she commented.

For the past seven years, the Historical Society has held its programs and meetings at various sites around town, and has kept its files in Board members’ homes. The move to a central location will provide the Society with an identity, and room to consolidate and grow.

“This property has so much potential and we are very excited about making it a center for the community to come together to have fun and celebration local history,” remarked HSM President Diane Galusha. The one-story clubhouse has a spacious rustic interior with a local stone fireplace and a commercial kitchen. The property features a pond, expansive lawns, a small garage and a barbecue pit. Attorney Gary Rosa supplied pro bono legal services in its transfer from the Grange to HSM.

A committee has been formed to discuss how to use, develop, promote and support the facility, and to explore options for long-term housing of the Society’s collection of historical materials, which is currently lodged in the Middletown Town Hall. The committee includes Gary Atkin, Sandra Bowen-Greene, Brian Ketcham, Eleanor and Chuck Mager, Steve Miller, Craig Ramsay and Ed Stewart.

HSM’s new headquarters

“The community has been very supportive of everything we have done over the past seven years,” Galusha continued. “We are grateful for this generous gift by the Grange, and hope that it will inspire continued support from members, friends, neighbors and history lovers as we establish a physical center for our activities.”

If you are interested in volunteering with HSM, or have ideas for exhibits or programs, please contact Galusha or any other board member: Carolyn Konheim, Marilyn Pitetti, Lucci Kelly, George Hendricks, Phil O’Beirne or Roger Davis, or send an email: history@catskill.net.

Property history

The Cemetery Road property was once farmland that was purchased in the 1940s by Julius and Frieda Meinstein and deeded in 1950 to Stephen Meinstein. In the mid-1960s it was sold to the Catskill Mountain Chapter of the Izaak Walton League.

The IWL, a conservation and sportsmen’s group which was established in Margaretville in 1927, had built a clubhouse on NYS Route 30 in 1938. (The windows had once graced Bussy’s Store in the village, and the hardwood flooring was taken from the former school on Church Street that was vacated in 1937 for the current Margaretville Central School.)

Scenic entrance to property

The widening of Route 30 in the 1960s prompted IWL to move its headquarters to the Meinstein farm site just up the hill, where the avid fishermen soon added a pond. A memorial stone to its founding president, F. Lee Keator, remains nearby.

When the chapter disbanded in the mid-1990s, it gave the building and surrounding acreage to the New Kingston Valley Grange, which had been established in 1968. The Grange made significant improvements inside and out.

For many years NKVG met monthly for pot luck meals, game nights, songfests and speakers. It held fund raising activities to benefit the Margaretville Memorial Hospital Auxiliary and needy local families, and to provide an annual scholarship to a graduating Margaretville Central School student. A group of Grangers has also made countless lap robes for nursing home residents, and stuffed toys for hospitalized children.

The Pond

Both IWL and NKVG rented out the building and grounds for special affairs, and many area people remember it as the site of family parties, wedding receptions, alumni gatherings and other functions.

“We hope to continue the tradition of welcoming the community to this special place,” said HSM’s Galusha. An open house, with a barbecue and a slide show of images of historic Margaretville, is planned for May 19.

Buried, and uncovered, by Dry Brook

Jan 16, 2012 | Tin Horn

The waters were cruel in our region late last summer. They claimed buildings, land and one precious life, and left a legacy of ruin that will take months, even years, to repair. But the flood also uncovered a bit of the past in a section of Dry Brook on the property of Gene Rosa.

Submerged water wheel that once ran a Dry Brook sawmillChiseled hole in old streambed for post of sawmill

The rusty remnant of an old water wheel bears mute testimony to the many mills that once thrived along Dry Brook, as well as to the power of the tempestuous creek that regularly destroyed them. Lester Rosa remembers hearing about this one. It powered a sawmill on his grandfather William Vermilyea’s farm (on the sharp curve 3.5 miles up Dry Brook Road from Arkville), where there was also a blacksmith shop and forge on the flat. Lester, who dug up artifacts from the blacksmith shop while gardening on the site over the years, speculates that the water wheel may have been made at that forge.

Water wheel jutting out of pool in foreground; former streambed to right

Lester’s paternal grandfather, Andrew Rosa, who died in 1915, was a sawyer who worked at this and other mills. It’s not clear whether it was abandoned before or after being washed off its moorings by some flood in the past.

It was one of no less than five sawmills that are depicted on the Beers map of 1869 on the Middletown end of Dry Brook – no doubt many more took advantage of the water power further up the stream in the Town of Hardenburgh. In 1869, this site belonged to Orson Allaben, a physician who helped develop Margaretville, served in the NYS Assembly and started a school. He also apparently dabbled in small industry. An article in the Nov. 26, 1948 Catskill Mountain News about the history of Arena (Lumberville) said this: “As in the case of (Asa) Grant, many of the wealthy men owned sawmills in connection with their other interests. One of them was Dr. Allaben of Margaretville, who owned several such mills in the various hollows of the section.”

Lester Rosa said deeds to his grandfather’s farm referred to it as the “Allaben Logging Reserve.”

Can you add information to this story? Write to us!

Chiseled hole in streambed for post of mill building

What’s going on here?

Jan 4, 2012 | Tin Horn

Mystery photo, What’s happening here?

The image above is one of 21 glass plate negatives found above Miller’s Drug Store in Margaretville years ago and donated to the Historical Society of Middletown by Al and Naomi Weiss. Several of the negatives were scanned and restored by Ed Kirstein of Roxbury. They were printed and framed by the Historical Society in 2007, and can currently be seen at Fairview Library’s conference room where the Historical Society will mount rotating historical displays.

What do you think is happening in this photo? What covered bridge is that in the background?

smlr-coming-out-of-the-ball-smiling-jean-0015

“Coming out of the ball smiling,” — is this the same event?

Is this postcard image, provided by Lynda Stratton, the same event? Is the clothing of the same era? Perhaps a daredevil sailed down the river in a flexible ball of some sort? Maybe the retaining wall at right (upon which the photographer must have been perched) offers a clue as to the location.

“A Whisper in Time” at Fairview Library

Jan 4, 2012 | news archive

January 3, 2012: An exhibit of nine framed photographs taken at the turn of the last century is now on view at Fairview Public Library, Walnut Street, Margaretville.

The library is open Monday (except holidays), Tuesday and Friday 12:30-5, Wednesday 12:30-7, Thursday 11-5 and Saturday 10-2:30.

The images were among 21 glass plate negatives found above Miller’s Drug Store years ago and donated to the Historical Society of Middletown by Al and Naomi Weiss. Several of the negatives were scanned and restored by Ed Kirstein of Roxbury. They were printed and framed by the Historical Society in 2007, and can be seen again at the library’s conference room through March 1.

The photos, taken by an unknown photographer, offer us a “Whisper in Time.” They show the Village of Margaretville from a couple of different perspectives, and Main Street, when horses and wagons were the principal means of transport.

One image shows a group of Native American woman and children, believed to have been an “attraction” at the Margaretville Fair in 1903. An unidentified group of hunters hams it up for the camera in another photo, while a dapper man with cane and pocket watch, and a handsome couple in formal pose, are also captured for all time.

There is also a mystery photo and visitors are welcome to offer ideas on exactly what they think might be happening there!

Man with horse and wagon, Margaretville Main St., c. 1903

Man on street, c. 1903