From the Archives
HSM COLLECIONS OF HISTORICAL MATERIALS
Pictured here are a few of the thousands of items in the HSM collection of historical materials. The collection includes photographs, diaries, store ledgers, business records, school documents, yearbooks, maps, letters, records of civic organizations, advertising items and the like. The collection includes some artifacts too, such as signs, small tools, housewares, toys and the like.
It is the only history collection dedicated to Middletown and the surrounding area. HSM is committed to preserving these treasures, adding to the collection and documenting our holdings so that researchers may make use of them. These materials will also inform our programming and exhibitions into the future.
To donate items relevant to the history of Middletown and contiguous towns, please contact us:
history@catskill.net; 845-586-4973.
An ode to the horse
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...
Honey Hill, revisited
Such a sweet name, but a place that came to signify hell on earth for hundreds of men who clashed there on November 30, 1864 just inland from the coast of South Carolina. The 144th Regiment from Delaware County was there. In the thick of it was Co. G, largely made up...
Sing it like you mean it
By Trish AdamsFirst published in the Catskill Mountain News If your ancestors include Boutons, Faulkners, Scudders, Hewitts, Hinkleys, Hubbells, Blishes, Kellys, Dimmicks, Millers, Davises, or Greens, it’s likely that you are part of the founding stock of one of the...
Mystery in stone
The Coffin Man’s calling cardThere once was an itinerant stone carver who traveled the dusty roads of upstate New York in a horse-drawn wagon loaded with quarried pieces of sandstone. He was looking for families who had recently buried loved ones, to sell them a...
Need your feathers renovated?
While doing some research in the 1880 Middletown census I came across an unusual occupation of a man named J. L. Thurber, age 54: “feather renovator.” He and wife Olive had three sons, Adelbert, 20, Eddie, 18 and Herman, 14, all listed as laborers. Hmmm, what the heck...
Who were the Waterburys?
The headstone in the Sanford Cemetery, Dunraven is impressive, a bronze plaque on a granite monument: Robert L. Waterbury, MD, 1823-1881 “He lived so others may live”; Christiana Dowie, 1823-1878 “His faithful wife”; and two children, a five-year-old son, and a...
Calling all bakers!
As you know we need a new roof and will be doing a lot of fundraising this year to pay for it. Our first event will be a bake sale at Freshtown (between Freshtown and CVS) on Saturday, Feb. 15 from 10AM to 2PM. Since it is Valentine’s Day weekend we think homemade...
Does the man on the left look familiar?
Backstage at the Capitol Theater, NYC Paula Eisenstein Baker, Houston, TX cellist and musicologist, is trying to verify whether he is Bernard Nadelle, a prominent cellist with the house orchestra at the Capitol Theater in NYC in the 1920s and 30s. Eisenstein Baker,...
The groaning board
At this the season of feasting, we offer this 1944 photograph of Max Kass, proprietor of the former Kass Inn in Kelly Corners, which was known for its marvelous buffets. The Inn was started in 1919 when Max Kass and two others (Nachman Groubarth and Harry Taub) bought...