The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown is preparing an exciting new season of local history programming.
Pick up a copy of the HSM 2017 calendar February 18 at the former Miller’s Drug Store, Main St., Margaretville during Sweet on Main. The Society will hold a bake sale and will exhibit items from its growing collection between 10 and 2. There will be a ‘selfie’ station too!
Upcoming programs include “Before Belleayre: A history of Highmount” (June 17), and “History as it Happened,” a tribute to the Catskill Mountain News (August 12).
A month of programs in observance of the 100th anniversary of women’s gaining the right to vote in New York State will happen in July, including a presentation on women’s domestic lives at the turn of the century, a concert by the Delaware Dulcimores, and a Main Street Suffrage March to the Open Eye Theater which will be staging a new musical, “Seneca Falls,” about the first women’s rights conference in 1848.
A series of walking tours of four area cemeteries will be held the last Sunday of April, May, June and August. They will replace the Living History Cemetery Tour, which will take a year’s hiatus after five successful annual events.
Area metal detectorists will descend on Halcottsville June 10-11 to see what treasures may be buried on several properties there in a special fundraiser to benefit HSM and the Halcottsville Fire Department which is trying to restore the 1916 Wawaka Hose house.
The annual meeting in October will feature Bill Horne, author of The Improbable Community: Camp Woodland and the American Democratic Ideal,” in a program about Mike Todd, Orson Slack and other mountain elders who shared their wisdom, music and skills with Woodland campers from 1939-1962.
Looking ahead, HSM is seeking information, images and artifacts related to World War I, which will be the focus of an exhibit in 2018. If you have photos, letters or memorabilia from family members who served in the war, please contact Diane Galusha, 845-586-4973.