A recently discovered photo of a grand old house that once stood in Dunraven has shed a bit of light on 19th-century doctoring.

When this photo was taken by the NYC Board of Water Supply in the late 1940s, the house was part of the Bruce and Cora Kelly farm. The buildings and 18 acres of the 128-acre farm were claimed for the tailwaters of the Pepacton Reservoir and the site is now a vacant lot where Delaware County Route 3 and NYS Route 28 intersect just west of the Route 28-30 divide.

The 1869 Beers Atlas shows a house in that location (look beneath the large Clarks Factory PO) belonging to Dr. G. H. Green. We think this could be the Kelly house — it certainly looked like the home of a prominent person.

Then as now there was the spectre of malpractice. In 1856, George Green’s father and partner were taken to court by Thomas L. Scott of Bovina 15 years after Scott fell off a horse as a child and broke his arm. He claimed the physicians didn’t set or treat his arm correctly. The court deliberated from Saturday morning to Monday night before finding the defendants guilty of malpractice and ordering them to pay their former patient $450 in damages.

Indeed, even doctors cannot cure everything. Dr. George and wife Nancy Roberts Green outlived all three of their children. They lost an infant, Warren, in 1849; a teenage son, also named George H., in 1870; and a daughter, Mary Amanda, who was 32 when she died in 1881. Nancy passed away in 1886.

Dr. Green, who had served two terms as Town Supervisor, lived to the ripe old age of 87, passing on in 1896.

The rather elegant farmhouse, below, was acquired by the Tuscarora Club and burned in the 1950s. Percy married Ada Reichard and died at the home of their son, Robert, in Morrisville March 3, 1961.

Up for auction were a rubber tired wagon, a lumber wagon, sulky plow, big pot ash kettle and more. Attendees were even treated to a free lunch!

John Burton Hinkley was 61 when he retired from farming on the back river road in Halcottsville. His wife Emily (Keator) had died just two years before. They had six children (Everett, Ella, Edward, Mae, Archie and Vertie). Archie was only 32 when he was killed in a blasting accident while dynamiting stumps with neighbor Arthur Miller in 1923. He left his young wife Elsie (Sanford) and two little girls, Hazel (Mead), 8, and Doris (Stahl), 5. Elsie was pregnant and delivered their third daughter, Emily (Schuman) a month after Archie’s death.

John B. Hinkley (who later married Prudence O’Connor and lived in Bragg Hollow) was one of eight children born to Edward (1830-1911) and Sarah Caroline Pulling Hinkley (1831-1894), a couple that saw more than their share of sorrow. Twins Ephraim and Abram, born Sept. 25, 1859, died within a week of each other the following February. Elmer, born in 1862, died at 14 months of age. Mary, born in 1865, was just nine when she passed away in 1875. And five years later, Everett died at age 12. Grant lived long enough to marry Ida Carroll, but was only 38 when he died in 1900.

John B. and his brother (Winfield) Scott Hinkley who lived in Meeker Hollow with wife Mary Cantwell, were the only siblings to live to old age. They died within weeks of each other in 1943. John was 87 and Scott was 72.

Feb. 20, 2016:
Guess it’s not the Woolheater house! Shirley Elliott, daughter of Doug Kelly, believes the old house to be one that stood on the site of a Main St., Margaretville building her father constructed as an ag and equipment sales store. She provided the name of Jennie Searles (J.S.) which Roger Davis researched and found to have been born in Prattsville in 1858 and died in Kingston in 1949. She lived in Margaretville with Miss Lydia A. (H.?) King at the house on the site of the old Douglas Kelly building, now an apartment house and office of a chiropractor.

The Woolheater house remains of interest — we’ll continue to research it.

Troupes of Teen-Age Barn alumni were formed to present live shows at local auditoriums and fairs, a sort of forerunner to today’s “American Idol” format. In 1953, the Channel 6 road show appeared three times in the area, July 9 at Margaretville Central School sponsored by the Margaretville Fire Dept., Sept. 11 at MCS sponsored by the Presbyterian Church, and in late September at Onteora Central School sponsored by the senior class.

Admission was $1. A poster for the July event turned up at McIntosh Auction recently. It includes photos of dancer Arlene Fontana, and ventriloquist Richard Cohen as featured performers. A story in the Catskill Mountain News indicated that the MFD show was “the second benefit program sponsored by the firemen to replace their former carnival.” They must have returned to the carnival as it remains the biggest money-maker for MFD today.

Does anyone remember these shows? Did anyone perform in them?

In the 1850 through 1865 Middletown census, Elias J. Osterhoudt was a harness maker living here with wife Margaret and son John. Both men were shown as harness makers. Their neighbors during that period were harness maker Daniel Tompkins, German-born wagon maker George Biehler as well as six farmers, a lawyer, two tanners, a shoe merchant, shoe maker, a carpenter, and an inn keeper (William O’Connor, who ran the Riverside Hotel, where MCS stands today.)

The 1870, 1875 and 1880 census records show John Osterhoudt, harness maker, with wife Eliza and a short-lived daughter, Alvaretta, who was one year old in 1870 but does not appear again. Eliza’s father, William Edson, a carpenter, lived with John and Eliza in 1875 and 1880.

(Brothers William, Henry and Alvin Edson were Civil War veterans.)

Exactly what happened to the Edsons and the Osterhoudts after 1880 is shrouded in history.

We know that John C. Osterhoudt was town clerk in 1867. And a David Osterhoudt (1806-76) and his wife Christina Clum (1809-1895) are buried in the Margaretville Cemetery.

If you have any information on these folks, we’d love to hear from you!