PRESERVATION PROJECTS:

Farming

Manieri family in cauliflower field, Townsend Hollow, near Highmount

Since 2004, the Central Catskills Chamber of Commerce has been celebrating the region’s heritage as a principal cauliflower growing area by coordinating an annual Cauliflower Festival in Margaretville. HSM has participated by filling a History Tent with exhibits and information on the agricultural history and farm culture of Middletown and vicinity. Our collection includes implements, records, photographs and other proof of when “cauliflower was king’ (1890s-1950).

In 2007, with just three operating dairy farms left in the Town of Middletown, HSM set out to try to map as many family farms as could be recalled by area elders. Coordinator Ira McIntosh gathered information from Bud Barnes (Arkville), Bill Sanford (Halcottsville), Esther Snyder (Denver), Hilton Kelly (Redkill), Leonard Utter (Millbrook), Lester Rosa (Dry Brook) and Fran Faulkner (New Kingston), who came up with 188 farms they remembered from the late 1940s-1950 era. A map of these farms and a key to their owners of more than 60 years ago was the result. See below

Dairy farmers needed a market for their milk, and they found it at the many creameries that operated throughout Middletown and neighboring towns. A 2009 project to document the locations and operations of these important businesses yielded a map, photographs of and information on about 20 creameries and milk processing plants in Arena, Arkville, Dunraven, Halcottsville, Kelly Corners, Margaretville, Clovesville, Halcott, Vega and Roxbury. This project was exhibited at the Cauliflower Festival, and at the Town Hall.

Sheffield-Farms-Creamery-Halcottsville-copy

When dairy farming was the primary way of life in Middletown, barns dominated the landscape. But with agriculture’s decline, most barns have followed suit, and have either been bulldozed for new structures or laid low by fire or the elements. Today, a few barns remain actively used in farming operations. Others have been artfully adapted for other uses: The Kelly Brothers round barn near Halcottsville has found new life as the home of the Pakatakan Farmers Market. And a lucky few have been preserved by owners with the passion, and the means, to keep them standing.

Kelly Brothers Round Barn, now Pakatakan Farmers Market

But more often than not, barns and other farm outbuildings once so critical to the farm economy have gone unused for decades, languishing in a suspended state of history, waiting for heavy snow, or high winds to bring the deteriorated structures down.

HSM has watched with alarm and sadness as these icons of our agrarian past have slowly disappeared. In 2009 and 2010 volunteers conducted a photographic survey of standing barns and collected information on their histories and current owners. (This information is available upon request.) The ensuing years have witnessed the ultimate demise of many of the structures we documented.

MIDDLETOWN FARM MAP, c. 1950

This map was produced by Ira McIntosh who in 2006 worked with local elders in each section of town to identify the locations of dairy farms that were operating in the late 1940s-early 1950s. It shows 187 family farms. In 2015, there were just two dairy farms still operating — Elliotts and Grays — both in the New Kingston Valley.

Thanks to Larry Kelly at the Catskill Watershed Corp. for producing the large map of the Town of Middletown. We apologize for errors in locations, spellings or for those we inadvertently omitted. We regret, too, that we could not list the names of the spouses of the men shown as owners of these farms, as women (and children!) were equally important in their operation.

KEY TO MIDDLETOWN FARM MAP
AREAS OF THE MAP ARE COLOR CODED:

NEON PINK (bottom of map): Millbrook/Arena
TURQUOISE: Dunraven/Huckleberry Brook
ORANGE: Margaretville/Arkville/Dry Brook
GREEN: New Kingston Valley
LIGHT BLUE: Fleischmanns/Clovesville/Redkill/Hog Mountain
PINK: Halcottsville/Hubbell Hill/Kelly Corners/Denver