That’s what Helen Keller said after landing two fair sized trout in Dry Brook in late July, 1935.

The Catskill Mountain News reported July 5 that she had rented “King’s Lodge,” the former Kelly farm, one of the Gould properties, for the summer. With a sizeable staff to attend her, and “thousands of feet of rope stretched around the promises to help her get about unaided,” the woman famous for overcoming blindness, deafness and lack of speech was “enjoying the delightful air of the Dry Brook Valley.”

Research into the lives of Middletown’s Civil War veterans has revealed more than a few intriguing and inventive men behind the uniforms.

Alder Lake with farm house, barn and hatchery

One of those was Julius G. Smith. Born in Glen Aubrey, NY May 18, 1840 to George and Achsa Millard Smith, he was also known as Junious, or just plain June Smith. The family evidently migrated to Delaware County (George and Achsa died in the 1850s and are buried in Woodland Cemetery. Delhi).

Twenty-one-year-old June came to Middletown to enlist in Company E of the 3rd NY Cavalry on August 11, 1861. For four years, he saw plenty of action throughout the Carolinas and Virginia, including the siege of Petersburg. His profile in the 1880 Munsell’s History of Delaware County counts 63 combat engagements. He appears to have escaped unharmed, and was discharged in July of 1865.

June was almost 30 when he married Adelaide (Ada) Jackson, daughter of Luther and Martha Jackson of Dingle Hill in the Town of Andes. The couple first lived with her parents, where June worked on the farm before setting up their own household in Dunraven. There were three children, Irving, Chauncey and Millard.

June Smith must have loved to tinker because he invented what became known as the “June Smith Creamer.” Just what it looked like or did is anyone’s guess – perhaps separated the cream from the milk — but It turns up in farm auction notices and in at least one article in the Catskill Mountain News where a 1947 story about a display of old time farm tools at Bussy’s Store in Margaretville described the “June Smith milk cooler, the patented invention of a Margaretville man.”

By the mid-1880s, though, June was more interested in fish than cows. Angling historian Ed VanPut writes in The Beaverkill that June Smith had been a fishing guide since he got out of the Army, and in 1889, traded his Dunraven farm for one carved out of the forest in the Town of Hardenburgh by Asahel and William Bryant. There Smith envisioned a resort to attract wealthy anglers who were coming to fish the nearby Beaverkill.

A partnership with fellow Civil War veteran Charles Odell, a wealthy Pittsburgh steel manufacturer, helped June Smith turn the farm’s Aulder Pond into 55-acre Alder Lake, stocked with native brook trout supplemented with those raised at a hatchery built below the dam. Smith was good at propagating trout, too good perhaps.

The partnership between him and Colonel Odell dissolved in 1891, and Alder Lake became the domain of a private club of wealthy Hudson Valley men. Most prominent among them was Samuel Coykendall, a millionaire railroad and steamboat company owner who ultimately purchased the shares of the other owners, built a three story stone mansion in 1900 and enlarged his estate to 1600 acres.

In 1945, the property passed from the Coykendalls to another private club, and then became a Boy Scout Reservation for Nassau County, LI scout troops. Legendary local outdoorsman Niles Fairbairn was the camp caretaker for many years, living in the Coykendall mansion. The property became part of the State Forest Preserve in 1980. The mansion was razed in recent years.

Seymour Dane, on the high plains of Montana

Born in 1868 he was the son of farmer William Dane, Jr. and Catherine Kittle Dane, who lived in Arena in 1870 with their eight offspring, and William’s 89-year-old Massachusetts-born father. Two of Seymour’s big brothers, Emeritt and Franklin, had served in the Civil War. By 1880 the family had moved to Walton, where 12-year-old Seymour was already working at a local foundry.

How he got to Montana, or why, remains a mystery. But in 1900, he shows up in Malta Township, Valley County, MT, age 31, a single farmer. In 1910, he’s in the Cowan School District of Montana, listing ‘rancher’ as his occupation, still single. (A family history relates that he also owned land in Mexico which was confiscated by the government after a change in administrations there.)

In May of 1905, the Catskill Mountain News reported that Arena native Seymour Dane had been visiting his cousins, Willard and Wilbur Kittle: “He now owns a large ranch in the northern part of Montana, 12 miles from the Canadian border, and owns about 1700 head of cattle, besides a large number of sheep.”

Perhaps a few more years of long winters and hard work on the lonely plains convinced Seymour to sell the cows and buy a boat. For that’s apparently what he did, setting out on the aforementioned “cruise” in November of 1911. They reached Florida as planned, but then love intervened. On the Miami River, they met Felder Lang, who with his brother had a sightseeing boat for tourists. Felder had a daughter Kate, an elementary school teacher. Seymour and Kate hooked up. End of cruise. (Young Leon Kittle evidently returned to New York where he married Bertha Kelly, lived in Denver and died in 1975.)

The Danes were married Dec. 11, 1913, at her parents’ estate, “Inchachee,” which is now Sewell Park near the 17th Avenue Bridge on the Miami River. Seymour and Kate built a home in Miami, and a 40-acre citrus grove in the Redlands, where they raised fruit for 25 years. He reportedly developed new fruit packing and shipping methods that reduced costs and increased consumer confidence in the quality of the produce.

Both Seymour and Kate were very active in community affairs, civic and business organizations, and Republican politics, and though they had no children, he served on the board of education in South Dade. He was very interested in photography and ham radio and had his own workshop for these hobbies. His brother George had found his way to Florida, too, and with wife Mae lived a mile away.

Skiers aren’t the only ones who love winter. Those who hurl heavy balls down long lanes towards meticulously arranged wooden pins brave all kinds of weather to gather at the local bowling alley every week to have some very noisy fun.

Since 1986, Mike Finberg has presided over Margaretville Bowl, the “recreational mecca of the Northeast,” where 120 bowlers in men’s, women’s, mixed and junior leagues roll for individual and team bragging rights from September through April. Except for the addition on the front, the place looks a lot like it did when it opened as Evergreen Lanes in October of 1960.

Hilton Wilbur, proprietor of the Inn-Between Restaurant, designed and built the eight-lane facility across Route 28 from his eatery, convenient for the after-bowling pizza and beer crowd. Dorothy Sanford, his partner in the restaurant, Kate and Orvil Rosa and Bob and Betty Veit were “stockholders” in the business, with the Veits acting as managers. By 1970, the Veits had become sole owners.

Opened in May of 1945, the Margaretville Bowling Center was owned by a conglomerate of 26 men who put up $12,000 to construct it. Charles Eglinger of Suffern was hired as its first manager under the direction of a committee made up of Everett Herrick, J. R. Weeks and Louis Affron. They must have been pleased to hear that summer that 200 games, at 35 cents a game, were being rolled seven days a week. Ka-ching . . .

Frances “Frisco” Sanford later operated the lanes. The town’s highway superintendent and a New Kingston cauliflower grower, Frisco was known for his amazing strength. He was also a good bowler, an original member of the Masonic bowling team.

Three leagues bowled at the outset of the Bridge Street lanes: the Women’s League; the Suburban League, with teams from Kelly Corners, Dry Brook, Vega and other Margaretville suburbs; and the Organization League, with teams from the fire department, Legion and other groups.

Anna Blish, an avid and award winning bowler, is keeper of the Women’s League’s records all these years later. The minutes from League meetings are full of familiar names. In 1948, Allegra Tomlinson was President, Arral Morgan was VP, Mary Rosa was Secretary and Marie Bussy Treasurer. Twenty women attended the May 6 meeting, and voted to give the previous year’s president, Doris Tuttle, a pressure cooker as a token of thanks. They also voted to levy a nickel fine for every game a person bowled below 100, and 10 cents for games below 80 (new bowlers were exempt until the middle of the season when presumably they would be hitting their stride. . .)

They were generous, though, in dispensing prize money – a total of $68 that year went to Molly Pfarrer, highest average; Chloe Clark, high individual triple, and many more. The awards were presented at the banquet at Kass Inn, where a dinner of ham, sweet potatoes and strawberry shortcake was offered for $2.25 per person.

Fellow long-time bowler Betty Griffin recalls that Alex Muir was one of the pin setters at the Bridge Street lanes. Alex, brother-in-law to “Frisco” Sanford who ran the place, was a deaf mute. In 1932, he drove his truck into the path of the Red Heifer railroad car because he couldn’t hear it coming. He jumped clear just in time, and survived to age 84. Among his nine sisters was Emma, Frisco’s wife.

Watson “Watty” George was also a pin setter, one of many local youth who got 25 cents a game per lane from tips provided by bowlers. At first the setters would step on a pedal that would raise metal rods at the end of the lane after each bowler’s turn. It was the setter’s job to pick up the wooden pins, which had holes drilled in the bottom, and set them on the rods for the next bowler. Later, a semi-automatic system was developed in which the human setter placed the pins in a mechanical rack which lowered them onto the alley. Either way, it was a lot of bending and lifting. Watty recalls Mary Todd as managing the place in the early 1950s.

The manual pin setting job went the way of the dodo bird when the lanes above the feed store were replaced in 1960 by the Brunswick Automatic Pin Setters at the brand new Evergreen Lanes half a mile down Route 28. Local bowlers welcomed this state of the art facility, which also featured “unitized foul lights, telescorers and hand dryers,” according to the Catskill Mountain News.

Skip Vigars, TV bowling star, came to Evergreen’s grand opening on October 21, 1960, giving an exhibition, free instruction and ball fitting advice.

The Veits worked hard to maintain the center and bought out the other stockholders by 1970. (Founding partner Hilt Wilbur died in 1969.) Hundreds of bowlers made Evergreen their home away from home.

When Mike Finberg, and boyhood friends Joel Weinberg and Shep Goldstein, bought the alleys from the Veits in 1986, they renamed the place Margaretville Bowl, building a 56 x 16-foot addition with a locker room and game room. The addition was constructed by Clive MacDonald; the signature bowling pin sign, that spun in the breeze from a pole out front, was made by Howard Raab from a single piece of plywood.

The following remembrance , written by George D. Taylor in his 1950 memoir “These Hills are not Barren,” is full of affection and admiration for the animal that kept things running on the family farm before the advent of the tractor. A three-horse team is shown working on the Townsend farm in Bragg Hollow, Halcottsville in this photo from the collection of the late Bernice Spielman. Can anyone explain this piece of equipment?