Historical Society of Middletown
Town of Middletown, Delaware County, NY
Welcome to the home of the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM)
The only website dedicated to the history of our town, located in Delaware County, in the Central Catskill Mountains of New York State
To donate items relevant to the history of Middletown and contiguous towns, contact us at historicalsocietyofmiddletown@gmail.org; or 845-586-2400.
HSM is dedicated to preserving the heritage of the villages, hamlets and the contiguous area of Middletown:
The Town of Middletown, in eastern Delaware County, includes two incorporated Villages, Margaretville and Fleischmanns; several hamlets — Arkville, Dunraven, Halcottsville, Kelly Corners, and New Kingston; and outlying settlements with their own unique histories — Redkill/Bedell, Millbrook, Dry Brook and the Denver Valley.
Because history doesn’t always follow political boundaries, HSM also collects and preserves stories and historic materials from contiguous towns — Roxbury and Andes in Delaware County, Hardenburgh and Shandaken in Ulster County, and Halcott in Greene County (which can only be reached through Delaware County). And of course we seek to preserve the heritage of a Middletown community that is no more — Arena, lost more than half a century ago to the Pepacton Reservoir.
WELCOME to the MIDDLETOWN HISTORY CENTER
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TIN HORN:
Observations & Discoveries
The Ruffs go to Florida
As half the Catskills prepares to load up the car to head to the Sunshine State for the winter, it’s fun to look back half a century or more to see what that trip used to cost. A penciled accounting of the pennies spent on the round trip from New Kingston to Orlando...
Fleischmanns businesses, c. 1950
Marilyn Mayes Kaltenborn spoke recently at a Fleischmans history program at Skene Memorial Library. She is the author of “An Unconventional Childood,” a memoir about growing up in Fleischmanns in the 1950s and ’60s, the daughter of Murray and Bertha Mayes. She was...
Stranded in Greenland
So you think it’s cold in the Catskills? Consider the case of Louis A. Lane, who was stranded on a 7,800-foot ice cap in Greenland 70 years ago and lived to tell the tale.Louis Arlington Lane was the son of Louis R. and Mary Quick Lane who lived in Arena and ran a...
EVENTS:
2025 Calendar
MAY 4
Kids Kingdom 35th Reunion! – Exhibit, videos, food, fellowship!
JUNE 8
The D&N: Ghost Railroad of the Each Branch –An illustrated talk by railroad historian John Duda
JULY 26
Margaretville at 150 –Celebrate the Sesquicentennial of the incorporation of the Village. Illustrated talk by Diane Galusha and Iris Mead; with an introduction by Orson Allaben (aka John Bernhardt), Margaretville’s first postmaster!
FEATURES
Biography of Roxbury-born Jay Gould
The 1977 booklet, one of a series on Delaware County History topics written by John Raitt, is a biography of Roxbury-born Jay Gould, maker of the 1856 Gould Map of Delaware County, and author of the first history of the county, also published in 1856. This booklet...
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“Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.”
W.H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand
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