The Grand Hotel will be subject of Historical Society program

Oct 14, 2010 | news archive

“The Grand Hotel, An Economic and Architectural History,” is the title of an illustrated talk by Annon Adams, who will speak Sunday, July 25 at 2 p.m. at Skene Memorial Library, Main St., Fleischmanns.

Sponsoring the program on the former Highmount landmark is the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) in conjunction with Skene Library and the adjacent Greater Fleischmanns Museum of Memories which will be open from before and after the program.

Program admission is free for HSM members, $2 for non-members. There is no admission to the Museum, but donations are encouraged. Those who wish to bring photos and artifacts from the Grand Hotel are encouraged to do so!

The slide talk will cover the design, construction and opening of the Grand Hotel in 1881, and will include several images of its interior taken by photographer Bob Wyer many years later, in 1947.

TThe hotel, accommodating up to 500 people and more than 600 feet long, was a showplace high on Monka Hill. Following its construction it was owned by railroad and steamboat magnate Thomas Cornell to cater to a socially prominent clientele, and had its own stop on the Ulster & Delaware Railroad. It also boasted a telegraph and post office, restaurant, bowling alley, croquet grounds, swimming pool, tennis courts, a nine-hole golf course and the famous Diamond Spring, whose waters flowed into a marble fountain in the rotunda.

From its expansive piazza, guests got a magnificent view of Slide Mountain, highest in the Catskills. Straddling the Delaware and Ulster County line, the bar in the hotel was reputedly moved whenever local liquor laws changed. The Grand Hotel has been gone since the mid-1960s; many area residents claimed its furnishings and accessories at a 1964 auction of the contents.

Historian Annon Adams is working on a book about the hotel’s architect, John A. Wood. The Grand Hotel was an important project for Wood (1837 – 1910). It built his reputation as a hotel architect and led to a number of projects in the south, including the National Landmark Tampa Bay Hotel. He also designed several Kingston buildings, including the Ulster Savings Bank, the Stuyvesant House Hotel and the NY State Armory; and the Tremper House in Phoenicia.

Adams lives in Poughkeepsie. She has served on the Boards of the Bardavon Opera House, Dutchess County Historical Society and Theatre Historical Society of America. She has researched the history of the Bardavon and other theatre buildings, and recently published an article on the history of Bowdoin Park in Dutchess County.

For more information on the Fleischmanns program, and other events planned by HSM, contact Diane Galusha, 845-586-4973, cybercat@catskill.net. For information on Skene Library and the Museum of Memories, contact John Duda, royalzrus@aol.com.

Margaretville Walking Tour September 12

Oct 14, 2010 | news archive

A guided tour of historic Margaretville will be offered Sunday, Sept. 12 at 1 p.m.

Participants will gather at the Binnekill Park (across from NBT Bank), where tour guide Fred Miller, proprietor of one of the oldest continuously operated pharmacies in the state – Miller’s Drug Store on Main Street — will give an overview of village history before leading a leisurely walk around town.

The tour will follow a route outlined in a brochure which was developed by the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown relating brief histories of 44 buildings in a one-mile loop around the village. HSM membership materials and program schedule for the remainder of 2010 will be available at the start of the tour, which is free. Donations are gladly accepted.

The tour route follows Main, Maple, Church, Orchard and Academy Streets. The walk is flat and can easily be accomplished in under an hour allowing time to examine and appreciate the homes, commercial structures and community buildings along the route. Mr. Miller will show photographs of some of these structures and street scenes during the tour.

Campaigns of the past revisited at Historical Society program

Oct 14, 2010 | news archive

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown will offer a musical journey through spirited election campaigns of the past when it gathers for its Annual Meeting Saturday, Oct. 23 at LaCabana Restaurant in Fleischmanns.

Linda Russell, former balladeer for the National Park Service, will sing and play the songs America voted by in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Her lively program casts a unique look at how we came to know the candidates for political office in the days before mass media.

The public is welcome to the program, which is made possible with support from the New York State Endowment for the Humanities, the NYS Legislature and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

Linda’s free performance at 1:30 p.m. will follow a luncheon of American and Mexican favorites that begins at Noon. Reservations for lunch are required by October 18. Please call 845-586-4973, or email history@catskill.net to reserve your seats at $15 each.

During the business portion of the meeting HSM will unveil its new website, which will contain capsule histories and photos of each of the hamlets in Middletown.

The Deaf Poet

Oct 14, 2010 | Features

The following is excerpted from
Works by James O’Connor, The Deaf Poet, with a Sketch of His Life by A. B. Douglas, Jan. 4, 1879

James O’Connor, the subject of this sketch, was born in Andes, New York, January 26, 1835. He was always an apt scholar, full of study and full of fun, with a smattering of mischief, which occasionally created, as it is said of our late war, “a slight unpleasantness” between the teacher and the taught. . . Notwithstanding these occasional misunderstandings with the autocrat of the rod, he became what may justly be called a first-class common-school scholar.

Few persons that have not made war the profession of their lives have encountered greater dangers, or had more hair-breadth escapes. A few of them will only be mentioned. While engaged in “bark-peeling” in the hemlock woods, he was completely covered from sight by the top of a large tree which some choppers had fallen upon him. He found himself between two of its largest limbs, his body being but a few inches from each; if either had struck him he would have been instantly killed. Providence preserved him, and he came out from that tree-top unhurt.

At another time, a large log came rolling down a hill toward him. It was so near that it was impossible to get out of its way, near by was a small hollow in the side hill, and, with remarkable presence of mind, he rushed to it, and threw himself down into it. The log passed directly over him and he was unhurt.

Upon two occasions he was nearly drowned. He has been run over three times with wagons. Upon one occasion he fell before a loaded wagon, which passed over him, fracturing both of his legs. When he was fourteen years of age, upon a very cold night in winter, as he was returning from school, he ventured upon a pond to have a slide; the ice was too thin, the consequence was he caught a fearful ducking and a fearful cold, which resulted in inflammation of the brain. His hearing became impaired. This affliction continued to increase, until for a number of years he has been entirely deaf.

 

Mr. O’Connor was a close student all his life. The improvement of his mind was the chief object of his life. He was not satisfied with the education to be acquired in the common schools. He prepared himself, and entered Union College, and graduated honorable in the Class of 1858. He chose the Law for a professlon, and began its study; but, on account of his growing deafness, he was forced to abandon his long-cherished hopes. He then turned his attention to the art of printing, which he learned in Oswego, New York. He followed the occupation of printer for some years.

On the 15th of October, 1863, he married Miss Mary J. Dickson, of Lumberville, New York. He then turned his attention from the printer’s to the more busy and stirring life of a farmer. Of late years he has suffered so much from disease of the heart that he has been compelled to abandon almost entirely the independent life of the tiller of the soil.

For several years he has devoted a large share of his leisure time to the composition of poetry; his thoughts seem to flow as freely under the direction of the muses as they do in the sterner vein of prose. His poems, as far as they have frequently appeared in the public press, have been very favorably received by an appreciative public. . .

STORM AND SUNSHINE OF BOYHOOD;
OR, TWO SIDES TO THE PICTURE.

Though bright is the sunshine of boyhood,
Yet all is not pleasant to him,
For the smallest of clouds that arises,
His brightest of moments may dim.
I know that the rambling school-boy
Has innocent joy in his heart,
While he plays with his ball in the meadow,
Or shoots with his cross-gun, or dart.
To wade in the mud, and the water,
To him, is a source of delight,
He loves to be fishing, and sporting,
He loves to be flying the kite.

His spool-tops, his wagons and horses,
His play-house, his hoop, and his cart.
His water-wheel; wind-mill; and hand-sleigh;
Can moments of pleasure impart.
He loves to be skating, and sliding,
He loves to be rolling in snow,
To see him, in all his amusements,
You’d think him a stranger to woe,
And now, we have looked on the bright side,
As people most commonly do;
But, let us turn over the picture,
The dark side is present to view.

The school-house, to him, is a prison,
That weighs down his spirits with care,
He considers his teacher a turnkey,
For guarding, and keeping him there.
He sits on the bench in the corner.
And fumbles the leaves of his book.
For which he receives, from the teacher,
A perfectly barbarous look.
Or, perhaps on his slate he draws pictures,
Or whispers, or laughs, through mistake.
And, as a reward for so doing,
He gets but a cuff, and a shake.
Or, should he, at times, be rebellious,
Or, any ways caught in the lurch,
He receives, from the hands of the teacher,
A smart application of birch.
Though forced to submit, yet, in silence
He curses the despot who stands.
In the shape of a teacher, before him
With rod of correction in hands.
0, how I can sympathize with him,
Yet, sympathy here is all vain;
He trembles at sight of the cane.

In limb, and in joint he is shaking,
His eyes are but fountains of tears;
No promise for future will save him
A cuff, or a pull at the ears.
I have many times thought, as Old Nick
Has oceans of sulphur to spare,
In the gloomiest regions of Tophet,
The teacher was sure of a share.
He deals out his vengeance unsparing,
The school-boy, with visage forlorn.
Beholds his last moments approaching,
And has to ”acknowledge the corn.”
Poor martyr, his woes they are many,
His pleasures are fleeting, and few,
0, Wisdom! behold what the school-boy
Is destined to suffer for you.
And thus you will find, in all pictures,
The bright side presented to view;
But be sure that you turn the leaf over.
That nought shall be hidden from you.

James O’Connor
The “Deaf Poet”
1835-1912

Bark Peeling Contract

Oct 14, 2010 | Features

MEMORANDUM OF CONTRACT between Jesse Tompkins and A. Clark and Son in which said Tompkins agrees to peel from four to six hundred cords of hemlock tan bark on such places on Mill Brook as A. Clark and Son may direct. The Bark is to be peeled, piled and saved in a good and workmanlike manner and good and convenient roads made to draw said bark with a wagon. . . This contract (to be) completed before the first day of October next.

Said Clark and Son agree to give said Tompkins ten shillings per cord for peeling, piling and making roads to said bark as above mentioned.

A. Clark & Sons

Jesse Tompkins

April 27, 1852

This hand written contract is among materials found many years ago in a building, now gone, that was once the Clark’s Factory store. The papers are in the collection of John McMurray.