Ten area residents will portray people from Middletown’s past in an unusual fundraising event to be held Saturday, June 30 by the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM).

In the “Living History Tour of Margaretville Cemetery,” costumed portrayers will bring to life artists and farmers, lawyers and raftsmen, doctors and editors who now lie beneath the sod. Docents will lead visitors through the picturesque grounds to meet each subject and hear about their occupations, their lives and their loves. This promises to be a moving tribute to folks who have gone before, and to a community whose history is inscribed in us, the living.

The one-hour, evening tour, offered every 15 minutes between 6 and 8 p.m., begins with a welcome at the cemetery gate from The Undertaker, played by John Hartner.

Other players, and the people they will portray, are Fred Margulies and Beth Sherr as J. Francis and Adah Murphy, founders of the Pakatakan Arts Colony in Arkville; George Hendricks, as his great-great-grandfather, farmer George Hendricks; and John Bernhardt as doctor, politician, editor and Margaretville Village developer Orson Allaben.

Mike Fairbairn will play his great-uncle, Niles Fairbairn, famed outdoorsman and animal trainer; Joe Hewitt will portray legendary log raft steersman Erastus Clute; Kent Brown will appear as the beloved Margaretville Hospital founder Dr. Gordon Maurer; and Ken and Amy Taylor will play Ward and Margaret DeSilva, whose bright futures were cut short in the 1919 flu epidemic, leaving their two little girls orphaned.

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) will host a Vintage Post Card and Ephemera Show and Sale Sat., June 16 from 10 to 3 at the HSM hall, 778 Cemetery Road, Margaretville.

Admission is $3; HSM members get in free.

Several vendors will offer old post cards, documents, maps, advertisements, flyers and other paper items. While the focus of the show is on old New York State views, dealers will also have topical, foreign, and holiday cards. The show is coordinated by John Duda of Fleischmanns, well known post card collector and dealer.

A special exhibit of antique post cards, “Wish You Here,” on loan from the Delaware County Historical Association, will be also on view.

MARGARETVILLE – Middletown residents and visitors have long had a love-hate relationship with the Catskills environment: While beautiful and generous in its abundance, its stony ground, weather extremes and flood-prone waterways can be unforgiving.

In “The Great Outdoors,” an exhibit mounted by the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM), drudgery, damage and disappointment are banished, while the playful, joyful connection between humans and nature, then as now, is on exuberant display.

The exhibit can be seen this Saturday, May 19 when HSM unveils its new headquarters at 778 Cemetery Road, Margaretville. The Open House will be held from 3 to 6 p.m. There will be light refreshments, door prizes, and the opportunity to stroll around the beautiful pond and grounds which were donated to HSM by the property’s most recent owners, the New Kingston Valley Grange.

The meeting hall was built in 1938 by the Catskill Mountain Chapter of the Izaak Walton League, a group of outdoorsmen who worked to conserve and protect water, land, fish and wildlife.

“We thought that, in honor of the Izaak Walton League, which was so active here from the 1930s through the ‘60s, that it would be appropriate for our first exhibit in our new space to focus on nature and how people in Middletown have enjoyed it,” explained HSM President Diane Galusha.

Historic and contemporary photographs and some fascinating artifacts highlight the many recreational activities that have long been pursued in this area blessed by mountain, stream and the Catskill Forest Preserve: fishing, hunting, camping, skiing and hiking of course, but also swimming, boating, biking, birding, skating and snowshoeing.

Guests at the many hotels and boarding houses in the area enjoyed lawn games and walks in the country, and even willingly participated in farm chores. Artists, including those at the Pakatakan Arts Colony in Arkville, have always been inspired to sketch and paint in the open air. Parks, playgrounds and ballfields have been the centers of their communities.