HSM offers Sunday Cemetery Strolls

HSM offers Sunday Cemetery Strolls

Apr 4, 2017 | news archive

A series of four Sunday Cemetery Strolls will be offered by the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown starting Sunday, April 30 with a guided walking tour of the Clovesville Cemetery just west of the Village of Fleischmanns on old Route 28.

The one-hour tour begins at 2 p.m. and includes the adjoining Bnai Israel Cemetery and a small burial ground where several Irish immigrants are interred. Tickets are $5 per person; children 12 and under may take the tour for free. 

Reservations are not necessary. Participants are advised to wear sturdy shoes and expect some uphill walking. Please park in cemetery driveway off Grocholl Road.

Guides from HSM and the Clovesville Cemetery Association will introduce tour-goers to 20 cemetery residents, including Revolutionary War veteran Samuel Todd Jr. who lived to be 101; circuit riding Methodist preacher Joseph Green who died of pneumonia as the Clovesville church was being built in 1842; miller Erastus Doolittle; boarding house owner Jane Morrison and members of the Mayes family of builders.

Meet fire watcher and mountain man Mike Todd, and hear the story of local man John Finkle Stone who was killed by Apaches in 1869 as he carried the proceeds from his Arizona gold mine. On the tour route are two veterans whose lives ended in the Philippines a generation apart and who now lie near one another: Richard Kittle died of starvation on the island of Samar in 1902, and William Todd, the first Delaware County man to die in World War II, the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. 

Bnai Israel Cemetery is the resting place of several Jewish immigrants, including Jacob Wadler, an Austrian-born tailor who died when he was struck in the head by a tree limb on his Halcott farm. The tour will also stop at the grave of Gertrude Berg, known to radio and television fans as Molly Goldberg, who got her start in show business at her parents’ boarding house in Fleischmanns.

At the Irish cemetery, docents will share information on Michael McCormack, a tanner and Civil War veteran, and the McGuire children, Maggie, John and Burnie, who died within weeks of each other in 1877.

Future Sunday Cemetery Strolls are planned for Margaretville (May 28), Bedell (June 25) and a pair of Dry Brook-Millbrook cemeteries August 27.

HSM plans 2017 season

Feb 15, 2017 | news archive

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown is preparing an exciting new season of local history programming.

Pick up a copy of the HSM 2017 calendar February 18 at the former Miller’s Drug Store, Main St., Margaretville during Sweet on Main. The Society will hold a bake sale and will exhibit items from its growing collection between 10 and 2. There will be a ‘selfie’ station too!

Upcoming programs include “Before Belleayre: A history of Highmount” (June 17), and “History as it Happened,” a tribute to the Catskill Mountain News (August 12).

 

A month of programs in observance of the 100th anniversary of women’s gaining the right to vote in New York State will happen in July, including a presentation on women’s domestic lives at the turn of the century, a concert by the Delaware Dulcimores, and a Main Street Suffrage March to the Open Eye Theater which will be staging a new musical, “Seneca Falls,” about the first women’s rights conference in 1848.

A series of walking tours of four area cemeteries will be held the last Sunday of April, May, June and August. They will replace the Living History Cemetery Tour, which will take a year’s hiatus after five successful annual events.

Area metal detectorists will descend on Halcottsville June 10-11 to see what treasures may be buried on several properties there in a special fundraiser to benefit HSM and the Halcottsville Fire Department which is trying to restore the 1916 Wawaka Hose house.

The annual meeting in October will feature Bill Horne, author of The Improbable Community: Camp Woodland and the American Democratic Ideal,” in a program about Mike Todd, Orson Slack and other mountain elders who shared their wisdom, music and skills with Woodland campers from 1939-1962.

Looking ahead, HSM is seeking information, images and artifacts related to World War I, which will be the focus of an exhibit in 2018. If you have photos, letters or memorabilia from family members who served in the war, please contact Diane Galusha, 845-586-4973.

Poorhouse talk at Annual Meeting Oct. 22

Poorhouse talk at Annual Meeting Oct. 22

Oct 3, 2016 | news archive

An illustrated talk on the Delaware County Poorhouse will be presented Saturday, Oct. 22 at the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown’s annual meeting and luncheon.

The event begins at noon at the HSM hall, 778 Cemetery Road, Margaretville. It will include a report on HSM’s activities over the past year. Current and prospective HSM members are most welcome.

Admission is $20 and reservations are required for the luncheon of roast turkey with dressing or vegetarian lasagna. Call 845-586-2860 by Oct. 14 to reserve your seat.

 

The program, which follows a short business meeting and HSM trustee election, will be given by Delaware County Historian Gabrielle Pierce. “Down and Out at the Delaware County Poorhouse” will reflect on lives lived (and lost) during the years that the Home existed, c. 1828-1965.

Pierce has been County Historian since 2010 and has done considerable research into this almost forgotten Delhi institution where hundreds of area residents spent months or even years. Her presentation will utilize narration, photographs and interviews with individuals who lived and grew up at the Home, and will also cover the cemetery at the site.

The Poorhouse, located on Arbor Hill Road, was home to poor, homeless, and indigent families and adults from all over the county, including Middletown. It also housed the “feeble and insane,” the disabled and the sick (there was a special section for those with tuberculosis).

Unmarried pregnant women and those whose husbands had left them lived there with their infants and children, many of whom were born and died there. In later years people without heat who could not stay in their homes during the winter found shelter at the Home.

The facility was believed built in 1828. It burned in 1862 but was immediately rebuilt with residents moving back in in 1863. It ceased to operate in 1963 when the buildings and 100 surrounding acres were sold. A new county infirmary was built in 1964 on Route 10, Delhi.

1950s Middletown farming at Cauliflower Festival

Sep 12, 2016 | news archive

A look back at the mid-20th century when there were nearly 200 family farms in the Town of Middletown will be offered in the History Tent at the Cauliflower Festival Saturday, Sept. 24 from 10 to 4 in Margaretville Village Park.

Sponsored by the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown, the tent will feature an exhibit that highlights farming in the 1950s. A numbered map of the town, created ten years ago with input from several area elders pinpointing the locations of some 188 farms, is accompanied by a key with the names of farm owners. Photos from the era will also be on display.

An exhibit on the history of the cauliflower industry in the region will once again be mounted.

The eagerly anticipated DVD of the Fifth Annual Living History Cemetery Tour, held in June at Halcott Cemetery, will be available for purchase.

A sales table of glassware, home decor, history books and other items will help raise funds for HSM, as will ticket sales for a “Lottery Tree” raffle. The winner of $100 worth of Lottery tickets will be drawn at the end of the festival.

HSM seeks photos of 1950s farm life

Sep 2, 2016 | news archive

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown is preparing to mount an exhibit focused on farming in the 1950s in the History Tent of the Cauliflower Festival September 24.

If you have images you’d like to share, contact Diane Galusha, 845-586-4973 to arrange to have them scanned, or email your scanned photos to history@catskill.net. Photos showing people at work or play, as well as landscapes, farm buildings and livestock would be most appreciated. 

About ten years ago, HSM worked with local elders to develop a map of the town and contiguous areas showing the locations of nearly 200 family farms c. 1950. The map will be put on display again at this year’s festival, along with photos of some of these farms, and images of businesses and community life of the late 1940s-early 1950s. 

The exhibit also expands on an April 16 slide show and memory sharing program at which a number of residents helped document mid-century Middletown.

September is Membership Month at HSM. To become a member, or renew yours stop by the HSM table at First Friday in Margaretville September 2 from 5 to 8 on Main Street, or visit www.mtownhistory.org. Memberships will also be taken at the Cauliflower Festival.

Melodrama, Pie Social August 20

Aug 14, 2016 | news archive

Some old fashioned entertainment will be offered by the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown Saturday, Aug. 20 when a troupe of local players presents “Middletown! A Melodrama” at 1 p.m. at the HSM Hall, 778 Cemetery Rd., Margaretville.

The short play, with music, will be followed by a pie social. Admission of $5 includes a generous slice of home-made pie (HSM bakers will make all kinds!), along with coffee, tea or cold beverage.

“Middletown!” is an original comic and campy play, the kind that used to be screened in silent movie houses and vaudeville stages. Written and directed by Marjorie Miller. it features Pat Gonzalez as maiden Daisy Fairbaby; Michael Fairbairn as Rex Hendrickson, pure-hearted farmer; Agnes Laub as Luce Bustle, a dancer at McMurray’s Tavern; Dave Riordan as Snidely Jeepers, villainous landlord, and John Bernhardt as Rev. Doright Huggable, local pastor.

Music will be provided by Monica Liddle.