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

Historical Society preserving Catskill Mtn News
January 17, 2022 The Historical Society of the Town of Middletown (HSM) is seeking the support of history lovers in its efforts to preserve and make accessible 12 more years of the Catskill Mountain News, and 25 issues of other local newspapers, most from the 19th...
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...

A young doctor faces diptheria
The year 1879 was a traumatic one for several local families and, we suspect, for one young doctor who tried to keep their children alive during an outbreak of diptheria. Dr. James L. Allaben was one of half a dozen physicians working in Middletown that year, when ten...
EVENTS:
2022 Calendar
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FEATURES:
Guest Posts
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...