Post Card Show June 16

May 26, 2012 | news archive

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.

“The Great Outdoors,” images and memorabilia related to outdoor recreation in this part of the Catskills, remains on exhibit for the season.

Raffle tickets will be available for a beautiful original watercolor of a Millbrook barn painted by the late Michael Fauerbach of Denver.

There will be light refreshments, and the opportunity to stroll around the beautiful pond and grounds.

For more information on HSM events and activities, visit www.mtownhistory.org, or email history@catskill.net.

“The Great Outdoors” at Historical Society Open House

May 16, 2012 | news archive

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.

“The Great Outdoors” will feature an amazing pair of 7-foot-long wooden skis from the 1920s, a rope tow gripper and other memorabilia from the family-run Highmount Ski Center which closed in 1992. Antique fly rods and reels, photos spanning the 30-year history of the Fleischmanns Tennis Tournament, and many other items still being gathered will be on display.

Visitors at the Open House will be invited to record their favorite stories of Middletown’s Great Outdoors.

A beautiful painting of a Millbrook barn, done by the late Michael Fauerbach and donated for raffle by Ellen Fauerbach, will be displayed.

The Open House will also offer a chance to speak with HSM board members about ideas for future programs and exhibits, and to volunteer to help with events, research and preservation efforts.

The exhibit can be seen again over Memorial Day weekend, and periodically through the summer. Watch for open hours at www.mtownhistory.org, or email history@catskill.net.

HSM Board members include Diane Galusha, Carolyn Konheim, Marilyn Pitetti, Lucci Kelly, George Hendricks, Phil O’Beirne and Roger Davis.

More old news

Apr 29, 2012 | news archive

The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) is happy to announce that five more years of vintage Catskill Mountain News have been posted online.

Web users can now search and browse the Margaretville-based newspaper from July 13, 1902 to April 28, 1961. Visit http://history.catskill.net to find this treasure trove of history, made possible by several individual donors and the O’Connor Foundation.

HSM is steadily working to have the News digitized through 1973.

A sample newly posted front page, February 1, 1957, offers the following tidbits:

Lawrence Gilmour, English teacher at Margaretville Central School, was named principal of Fleischmanns High School; Mrs. Sydney Silberstein was elected President of Congregation Bnai Israel’s Auxiliary; polio shots were being given at Grand Gorge and Roxbury schools by Health Officer Dr. Julian Gaul; the US Air Force was planning to erect a radar tower on Craig Hill on the Gerry Estate in Andes; store owners in the Margaretville Chamber of Commerce decided against opening late Friday nights, but would keep the doors open on Saturday nights; a new architectural ornament – interlocking rings hung above the altar — was a gift of Armand Erpf to Sacred Heart Church of Margaretville.

There was also a story about George Graham, printer for the News, who suffered a bout of amnesia after hitting his head in a fall on Main Street, Margareville. He woke up two days later in a South Carolina hotel, with no idea how he’d gotten there.

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!

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.

“A Whisper in Time” at Fairview Library

“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