130 Years Ago - 1895

Theodore A. Cook, the creamery man near Callicoon Depot, will soon commence the manufacture of condensed milk. He is now bottling a milk preparation, made by a secret formula, for use in coffee and tea. The other day he shipped a ton of pot cheese to New York.

The corporation officials of Liberty have made an appropriation of $400 to erect a lock-up, the sum of $400 was also appropriated to build a tower to the engine house in which to dry hose.

A happy event occurred at the home of Philip Seelig on Monday night when a little son joined the family. Mother and son are doing nicely, and all are rejoicing.

Will Krantz, who has been occupying the Bohen place near here, bought the John N. Kohler farm at Kenoza Lake this week, and will fix it for summer boarders.

George Matthews of Youngsville showed a hen’s egg the other day which measured 6 inches by 8 inches in circumference. When broken the egg contained two yolks.

120 Years Ago - 1905

The Methodist parsonage at Kenoza Lake was destroyed by fire at ten p.m. Monday, together with some of the parsonage furniture and all the furniture of the pastor, Rev. W.A. Rodney, which was stored on upper floors.

Kenoza Lake – Arthur Krantz, the 22-year-old son of John Krantz of this place, came near being killed by a falling tree at the wood bee in Conrad Wegman’s woods near Jeff. Krantz and Frank Allgeier were sawing down a large tree five feet in diameter at the butt and when the tree fell it did so in the opposite direction from that expected.

Cupid’s Capers – iss Alice A. Brog of Jeff and John Glass of New York were united in marriage at the home of the bride’s mother. It is stated that George Buddenhagen and Miss Louise Hartz of Beechwoods will be married April 5. Asa Edwards of White Sulphur Springs and Miss Emma Hardenburgh of Livingston Manor were married at the Presbyterian parsonage at the latter place on March 4.

How the mud will be welcome this spring! Anything but snow; we have had it up to the chin all winter.

The propriety of publishing “cards of thanks,” says the Sidney Record, has often been questioned and not generally regarded as good form, as applied to deaths. But there comes an entirely new wrinkle in the card of thanks line taken from an exchange. It’s a jewel! “We wish to thank the friends who were so kind to us recently upon the birth of our baby. The doctor particularly was kind and we feel under lasting obligations to the two neighbors who stayed up with us all night.”

It is understood that the O&W Mountain Express, heretofore a summer train, is to become a permanent thing, due to the patronage it has been receiving on trial during the winter.

110 Years Ago - 1915

Frank Keegan Jr., Adolph Schumacher and Edward Boyle, trustees of school district No. 7, town of Delaware, known as the Lower Beech district, let the contract for the erection of a new and larger school building on the site of the old one. John D. Keegan of Kenoza Lake, whose bid was the lowest, was awarded the contract.

Youngsville is to have a new and modern bowling alley for the coming season. John Huff has decided to erect one on his lot in the center of the village opposite Durr’s Hotel.

Births: A son was born March 12 to Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Hauschild, on the Mike Yager farm on Sixteen. A son was born on March 13 to Mr. and Mrs. Otto W. Meyer of this village.

There is still some active opposition to the consolidation at Youngsville, not withstanding the order of the department. Two meetings were held in the Hardenburgh district last week at which time it was declared that the district could not be included in the consolidation against its wishes.

Pastor Coenen and members of the Reformed Church surprised Philip Hembdt at his home in honor of his seventy-fifth birthday. As a token of appreciation of his faithful service as president of the church society for seventeen years, Mr. Hembdt was presented with a substantial oak chair.

The house on the homestead of the late John Potts at Bethel was destroyed by fire Friday. The farm was bought nearly a year ago by W.B. Donaldson and the loss is a severe blow to him, as he was trying hard to pay for it.

100 Years Ago - 1925

A committee of the Jeffersonville Grange are agitating a movement to procure from the electric company a lower rate for current in the community of Jeffersonville.

The Sullivan County Accredited Herd Association met at Liberty Monday and opened bids for the position of county veterinary, provided for in a resolution adopted by the board of supervisors, who approved $3500 for the use of the association in the eradication of bovine tuberculosis in the county. Three bids were received from veterinarian Freer of Liberty and Floyd Hust and Harvey W. Myers of Jeffersonville. Mr. Hust was selected.

A strict quarantine has been placed on the village of Summitville by the state Health Department as the result of a little being bitten by a mad collie dog and the belief that several other dogs were infected with hydrophobia.

Last Saturday, Wm. Heidt Jr., for the past ten years editor and publisher of the Sullivan County Democrat at Callicoon, purchased of M.V. Atwood the Groton Journal and the Trumansburg Sentinel, the only weekly newspapers in Tompkins County.

The action of Wm. H. Keim and daughter, Jennie, of Callicoon for damage against Arthur Neumann of Callicoon Center and John H. Gorton, state road contractor, is being tried in Supreme Court in Monticello and is expected to be completed today.

In Supreme Court at Monticello, a jury returned a verdict awarding John Schad of Long Eddy $3,300 and interest against the North River Insurance Co. of New York. This represents an unpaid policy due as a result of fire which destroyed a house and property belonging to the plaintiff.

90 Years Ago - 1935

The long fight over the postmastership at Kenoza Lake has finally come to a head and the Supervisor George H. Raum has won out.

The home of George Edelman Sr. at Fosterdale was burned to the ground last Sunday, while efforts were being made to put out the fire which started in the kitchen chimney.

County Judge George L. Cooke of Monticello held a children’s court hearing in the school house here last Saturday to pass judgement upon fifteen boys from 8 to 12 years old who were rounded up by State Trooper Robert Flynn and confessed to having entered the Meter and Royce Store in Jeff at numerous times during the past couple years.

A Liberty man who bought bootleg coal sued the dealer for damages when he found that the coal contained 15 percent slate. The court gave a verdict of no cause for action. The moral of which is, if you patronize a bootlegger and get stuck, don’t squawk.

More than 25 cases of measles  were reported  in the town in Bethel within the past few weeks.

The Board of Supervisors is considering the proposition to purchase a submachine gun, which peppers off fifty shots in a jiffy. It is argued that the sheriff and his men should be equipped as well as gangsters are when the officers meet up with them. If not, they are out of luck.

80 Years Ago - 1945

Fred J. Weiss, who has been driving a delivery truck for the American Oil Company of Liberty for fifteen years, will give up the job about April 1 when he will start up again the wholesale and retail milk and cream route through the towns of Liberty, Callicoon and Delaware, formerly run by his brother, Walter, and later by Fred Schuler.

Elliot Moran, local ice dealer, has been trying to harvest ice from Lake Jefferson for some time now, without success, owing to the heavy snow on the lake, which became saturated with rain then froze into ice, which is now rotting and unfit for harvesting.

A letter from Pvt. Wm. H. Baum in artillery training at Ft. Bragg, N.C., states that while on a drill field he broke his right leg and is now in the hospital at the camp.

Gilbert Weiss, 23, of Jeff, a private in the Army Air Corps, has been transferred from New Guinea, where he has been three months, to Amberly Field, Australia, about 30 miles from Brisbane.

Adolph Stoeckli, who has had a jewelry store and watch repair business on this village the past several years, will open a similar store in Liberty. Mrs. Stoeckli will conduct the store in the Faubel building here for a time.

Mrs. Cornelius Duggan of Bethel announces the engagement of their daughter, Ruth Smith, to Sgt. D. Richard Mitteer, son of Mr. and Mrs. Donald Mitteer of Liberty.

Marion LaBagh, daughter of Mrs. Helen and the late Austin LaBagh of White Sulphur Springs, became the bride of Sgt. John Armstrong in Syracuse on March 9.

A 9 lb. daughter, Carol Zelda, was born March 11th to Dr. and Mrs. Max Epstein of Jeffersonville.

70 Years Ago - 1955

Congratulations to Rev. and Mrs. Peter Bult of North Branch on the arrival of a son, Terry Lee, at the Callicoon Hospital on March 11th. This is the sixth son in the Bult family.

Miss Helen Gnan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Gnan of Jeffersonville was honored with a bridal shower given by Misses Elizabeth Schwirzer and Roberta Mann on Saturday, March 12. Miss Gnan will become the bride of Steven Slama of Rhinebeck at St. George’s Church, Jeff, on April 16.

Michael Nakao, son of Mr. and Mrs. William Nakao of Jeffersonville, fractured his jaw while riding a bicycle last Friday afternoon. Bleeding and having passed out with pain, Michael was picked up by Dr. Edwin Urbach, who was contacted in town, and brought him to his Kenoza Lake dental office. Within a short time the doctor took X-rays and set the fracture.

The Shriners will take over the Sullivan County area on April 16th. There will be parades in Livingston Manor, Liberty and Monticello, and a big banquet in the evening at Kutsher’s Country Club near Monticello. Six hundred are expected at the banquet.

White Sulphur Springs: A fire in the wood shaving pit at the Liberty Wood Products here Sunday afternoon called out the local firemen. Due to the location of the main buildings of the plant and with a strong west wind blowing this would have been a disastrous fire had it gotten out of control.

Cochecton: Charles E. Conklin, who is 85 and is the oldest raftsman in this area, is a descendant of a long line of raftsmen. His maternal great-grandfather was Timothy Tyler a well-known steersman in the 1830s, who was given the name of “Slow” for his skill in piloting the raft safely in slow water. His grandfather, J.A. Tyler, was also a raftsman and a steersman.

A daughter was born on March 15 to Mr. and Mrs. George L. Seibert of Halesite, L.I. Mr. Seibert is the son of Fred W. Seibert of Jeffersonville.

60 Years Ago - 1965

Edward Swoope of Carl’s Motor Sales in Callicoon was presented Ford Motor Company’s 300-500 Club award at a banquet at the Concord Hotel in Kiamesha Lake, March 28, honoring high-ranking Ford dealership car and truck sales of 1964 in the Newark sales division of Ford Division.

John Miller of Callicoon gained recognition last Wednesday, March 24, 1965, when he participated in the arrest of a robbery suspect in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Mr. Miller, a patrolman of the Clymer St. Station, called in his precinct and was given a description of two stickup men who had just held up cabbies. Mr. Miller recalled that he had just seen one of the suspects a few blocks away. He nabbed the man and took him to the station house, where he was identified by the cabbies as one of the stickup men. The story appeared in the Wednesday edition of the New York Daily News.

Monticello — District Attorney Robert C. Williams and his wife, Dorothy, arrived home from Florida Sunday night. They flew to Puerto Rico March 12 and remained there until the 19th when they flew to Miami.

Mrs. Gertrude Graham, 71, a Gold Star Mother who lost a son, Richard, in 1933, killed while serving in the Armed Forces in France, died March 25. She was the first president of the Ladies Auxiliary to the H. Russell Kenyon Post 5808, VOW.

The Roscoe House, a landmark in the northern Sullivan village, was demolished Friday. The building formerly was owned by Real Estate Agent Ray Pomeroy, who bought a home in Rockland. It was one of several buildings demolished for the new Route 17.

50 years ago - 1975

Bob Lander of Narrowsburg has purchased the former Black Horse Inn, overlooking Skinners Falls and will reopen the inn and canoe livery on April 11 under the name of Lenape Tavern.

Announcement has been made this week that the building previously occupied by Peck’s Market on Main St., Narrowsburg, has been purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Kelly. The Kellys own and operate Kelly’s Home for Adults on Route 97, south of Narrowsburg. They plan to renovate the building into another nursing home.

BCI Senior Investigator Edward V. Whalen has been promoted to lieutenant and will be assigned to Troop K in Poughkeepsie.

40 Years Ago - 1985

The third store of Trading Post owners Howard and Martin Gottlieb was opened at the former Sabloff building on Route 52, Liberty, on April 4. They also have stores in Monticello and Rock Hill. The Rock Hill store was opened in 1960. The new store will carry flea market type items and a full line of hardware products, housewares and sporting goods. 

30 Years Ago - 1995

Douglas Lindsley was sworn into a four-year term as Liberty village justice last week by Town of Liberty Justice Richard Hering. Lindsley was unopposed in the recent village election for the  post vacated by David Schiff.

The New York State Department of Health (DOH) confirmed Friday that a raccoon strain was detected in the brain of a rabid male Holstein that was reported at J+E Weissmann Farms in Callicoon Center March 12. No additional rabies reports have surfaced.

For the sixth year, elementary students at Tri-Valley Central School have taken part in a rope-jumping marathon to benefit the American Heart Association. Elementary Physical Education Teacher Linda Goldstein has coordinated the event since it started in 1986. “This is something that the kids look forward to by now. They ask me when it’s going to be every year,” she said.

For Luke Tursi, Friday was a bit of a surprise when he retired from the U.S. Post Office in Monticello, as a 22-foot-long white limousine pulled in to pick him up and chauffeur him around on his rural delivery route. Friday was Tursi’s birthday and also the day he retired from the post office after serving for 37 years. “It’s rare that anyone works 37 years in the same post office these days but Luke did it and logged over 300,000 miles delivering mail without an accident, too,” said William Tochterman, the postmaster in Monticello.

20 Years Ago - 2005

Sullivan Renaissance officials handed out 42 grants to local community groups for the start of their beautification efforts Thursday. Twenty $1,000 grants, 18 $1,500 grants, and four $5,000 grants were handed out.

Seven months of bad memories came flooding back to residents of Sullivan County Saturday. After a long winter and a sudden rise in temperatures last week, the snowpack had melted and already filled streams, creeks and rivers in Sullivan County to their capacity. Then a heavy rainstorm hit Monday night, flooding basements and sending water flowing wherever it could find an escape route. Eastern sections of the county were especially hard hit. The main bridge in and out of South Fallsburg was closed indefinitely. On Hasbrouck Road in Woodbourne, the Neversink River overflowed, destroying several small bridges. In Bridgeville, the Neversink overflowed to such an extent that it reportedly hit the rooftop of the Holiday Mt. Ski Chalet. In Swan Lake and Parksville, several roads were washed out. The Viaduct Road bridge in Hortonville was knocked right off its abutments on Saturday night when it was struck by a box trailer which was carried down the Callicoon Creek’s flooding waters. Callicoon’s River Road was river by name, and river by nature when the Delaware rose up over its banks – residents who were evacuated in September for the first time ever were trapped on their dead end street over the weekend.

Brian and Nicole Rogerson of Neversink announce the birth of a son, Bryce John Rogerson, born February 23, 2005. He has an older sister, Emily, at home. The maternal grandparents are Laurie Ferber of White Sulphur Springs and Arthur and Jeanine Dirie of Saugerties. The paternal grandparents are John and Marilyn Rogerson of Greenfield Park.

10 Years Ago - 2015

When Joseph Lalicata got the call at work yesterday, he thought his neighbor’s home was on fire. The number emergency responders were using was for the house across from his on Rose Road in Hasbrouck, about three miles north of Woodbourne. But when he arrived late yesterday morning, Lalicata found out it was his home. Responders had used the neighbors’ number because he didn’t have his number visibly posted. Woodbourne Fire Department Chief John Wallace said they got the call around 10 a.m. Initial fears that up to two people were trapped inside proved unfounded. The near-50-year-old mobile home, however, was gutted. Woodbourne was assisted at the scene by fire departments from Grahamsville, Neversink, Loch Sheldrake and Fallsburg. Liberty and Napanoch were on standby.

At Killington Pico (VT), top Masters athletes competed at the American Skiing Racing Alliance (ASRA) Alpine national championships for title of best Giant Slalom skier in their ability groups. Bethel’s Bill Pammer triumphed in the men’s Class A category taking gold. The event, which was held on Saturday, March 14, hosted 73 top racers from around the United States. Pammer was Planning Commissioner for Sullivan County from 2004 to 2009, and is an avid telemark and alpine skier and racer.