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
HSM is dedicated to preserving the heritage of eight villages and hamlets and the contiguous area:
Margaretville, Fleischmanns, Arkville, Dunraven, Halcottsville, Kelly Corners, New Kingston and Redkill/Bedell, as well as a community that is no more — Arena, lost more than half a century ago to the Pepacton Reservoir.
The Margaretville Covered Bridge,
which spanned the East Branch of the Delaware River on Bridge Street from the 1860s until 1933, is our logo, symbolic of the ‘bridge’ we hope to make between the past and our contemporary lives.
WE ARE BUILDING HISTORY — and we invite you to be part of the campaign to create a history center for Middletown!
Please support the campaign for a Middletown History Center and save our stories.
Recent Updates…
NEWS:
Recent Press Releases
Building update, new trustees highlight annual meeting
Two new trustees – Alana Siegel of New Kingston and Michael Fairbairn of Millbrook – were elected to the Board of the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown at its 18th Annual Meeting October 22. Long-time HSM President Diane Galusha was also re-elected to a...
Rare books program October 22
A family Bible worth $350,000. A first-edition classic found at a flea market. A 500-year-old German book of woodprints stored under a bed for 40 years. Mark Twain’s personal book collection, many with penciled comments, questions and witticisms, stashed in barrels in...
New Kingston photographs of Irene Fay Oct. 1
The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown will revisit a unique time in New Kingston Valley history, one documented by photographer Irene Fay, in an illustrated talk Saturday, Oct. 1 at 3 p.m. at the New Kingston Presbyterian Church. “World of my own: The New...
Cauliflower Festival is Sept. 24
The 18th Cauliflower Festival will be held Saturday, Sept. 24 from 11 to 4 in Margaretville’s Village Park, sponsored by the Central Catskills Chamber of Commerce. Pure Catskills, the Catskill Forest Association and the Historical Society of Middletown will be key...
TIN HORN:
Observations & Discoveries
The Battle of Shacksville, March 14, 1845
This is the general area where the Battle of Shacksville is presumed to have happened. That’s the East Branch of the Delaware River at center left crossing under the bridge on what is now Briggs Road. Town of Roxbury collectionThe Battle of Shacksville, March 14, 1845...
In The Prime of Their Lives
Young people in the prime of their lives are reflected in these undated portraits, c. 1870, from an album scanned by Steven Morse. The cigar-smoking men are cousins Eugene Crosby and William M. Bellows and the women are Will’s sisters, Sarah Idell Bellows and Orrie...
WARK: Home-grown TV
WARK: Home-grown TV Back in the Dark Ages, before you could whip out your cell phone, shoot some video and in an instant post it on the internet for all the world to see, there was ‘local access’ cable television. In the Margaretville-Arkville area, it was known as...
Home from The War
Orville Baker led an ordinary life. One of six kids in an ordinary family who grew up in an ordinary town, his death was ordinary, too, for the times. Orville succumbed in 1918 to pneumonia in the murderous worldwide influenza pandemic while serving with thousands of...
EVENTS:
2022 Calendar
“Private Side of History” readings in Margaretville Sept. 8
The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) will stage an informal reading from a dozen diaries, letters, and memoirs in a Second Sunday program at the Middletown History Center September 8 at 1 p.m.
Author discusses history-based novel at August 11 talk in Margaretville
The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) welcomes Halcott resident and author Peg DiBenedetto who will discuss and read from her book “Silver Dollar Girls” in a Second Sunday program at the Middletown History Center August 11 at 1 p.m.
HSM offers talk on history of Denver-Vega Valley July 14
An illustrated talk, “Homesteads to Go-Karts: A History of the Denver-Vega Valley,” will be presented at the Middletown History Center in Margaretville July 14 at 1 p.m.
HSM to open Middletown History Center
The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown will hold an Open House at the new Middletown History Center, 778 Cemetery Road, Margaretville, on Sunday, June 9 from 2 to 4 p.m.
The celebration will begin with a 2 p.m. ribbon cutting on the doorstep of the expanded facility which includes an archives and reading room named for HSM benefactor Nicholas J. Juried.
FEATURES:
Guest Posts
Middletown Family Farms, 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...
Obituary For a Newspaper: History As It Happened
HISTORY AS IT HAPPENED A program presented by the Historical Society of the Town of Middletown on August 12, 2017, and posted on its website March 27, 2020 in tribute to the Catskill Mountain News which ceased publication January 15, 2020. INTRODUCTIONA weekly...
Images of Historic Arkville
Take a look at these wonderful pdf documents of historic Arkville photos! Enjoy this peek back in history — 138 photos are divided in to 5 pdf documents to help speed up your download time!
Middletown’s Civil War Dead
Read a tribute on Memorial Day, delivered on May 30, 2011: LINKS TO RELATED POSTS: FEATURESMiddletown Civil War SoldiersDatabase and Veteran Profiles
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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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