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Lily Barrish Levner’s debut novel, “Banquets & Bootleg Bounty.”
Our Annual Look at Local History Books
With another holiday season upon us, it is time for this column’s annual reminder that books about Sullivan County’s rich and colorful history always make great gifts, but especially this … more
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Tri-Valley School Superintendent Edward T. Condon chaired the County’s Charter Review Commission, which submitted its recommendations to the Board of Supervisors in March of 1969.
The Ongoing Debate Over A County Executive
The Sullivan County Board of Supervisors had many issues to deal with in December of 1969, and the hotly debated topic of reforming the County Charter to transfer power to a County Executive and a … more
A map of Gilman’s Station, circa 1872.
A Devastating Fire
Brush fires have been much in the news of late, and those familiar with Sullivan County history have been moved to recall massively destructive wildfires from years gone by, including the May, 1884 … more
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The Sackett Boardinghouse in Bittersweet, where Charles Wise was living as a “Fresh Air Boy.”
Bittersweet Murder Remains Unsolved
Nina Vilona was a 50-year old unmarried piano teacher from Mount Vernon, NY who was vacationing at William Gorman’s boardinghouse in Bittersweet when she disappeared on Friday morning, July 9, … more
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The First Veterans Day
On November 11, 1919, one year after fighting had officially ended in what at the time was known as the Great War, President Woodrow Wilson initiated the first Armistice Day by proclaiming that, … more
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James A. Farley was NYS Democratic chairman in 1931, and hatched a plan for his party to hold on to the majority in the Assembly that targeted the race in Sullivan County.
Tammany Hall Targets Sullivan County
In late October of 1931, Republican leaders from throughout New York State gathered in Albany to discuss ways to counteract a new strategy the Democrats in the state were employing that year. … more
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Robert Land’s burial vault in Hamilton, Ontario.
Magistrate and spy
In October of 1805, Robert Land, who was then 66 years old, penned his last will and testament, dividing up his considerable holdings in Ontario, Canada among a number of his children and providing a … more
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An artist’s rendering of Abel “Sailor Jack” Allen
Sailor Jack
On October 8, 1887, Abel Allen, a laborer who worked clearing land around Jeffersonville for Solomon Royce, borrowed a shotgun from a co-worker, claiming he was going to hunt birds. Instead, … more
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Alfred B. Street
The Ig Nobel Prize
Tourism in Sullivan County dates back to at least 1840, and has consistently ranked at or near the top of the list of the county’s top industries since 1890, but the concept of fall foliage as … more
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Ian Pammer of Bethel, known throughout the Fort as Master Ian.
Master Ian, Drummer
During the Revolutionary War, it was common for each company of men to include two boys between the ages of 10 and 18 who wore colors in the reverse of the soldiers, and whose duties were to play the … more
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Farming brought the first European settlers to this area in the 1750s, but they were not the first farmers here by a long shot. Find out more from a program at the Western Sullivan Public Library in Jeffersonville on Tuesday, September 10.
Farming in Sullivan County
Cushetunk, the first permanent European settlement in the Upper Delaware region, part of which would later become Sullivan County, was established in the 1750s by a group of farmers from eastern … more
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The Coaching Day 1894 Arch with the Hotel Rockwell to the left.
Coaching Day 1894
As it has for each of the past several years, Bagel Fest recently brought throngs of people to   Broadway in Monticello, recreating some of the energy of days gone by, when such throngs were … more
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Deborah Sampson at Fort Delaware
It was early in 1782, and the Revolutionary War had been raging for seven long years when 21-year-old Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a man named Robert Shurtleff and enlisted in the Fourth … more
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The newly upgraded Apothecary at Fort Delaware Museum tells the story of the herbal remedies used in colonial times and the men and women who dispensed them.
Heroic Therapeutics
When the Cushetunk settlement was established along the upper Delaware River in the mid-1750s by a group of farmers from eastern Connecticut, two brothers, Simon and John Calkin, were among the … more
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The Park View Hotel on Broadway will be one of the lesser-known hotels in the village examined in the presentation “Monticello Hotels” at the Crawford Public Library on Tuesday, July 30 at 6 p.m.
Monticello Hotels
In his 1945 essay about the village of Monticello, Adelbert M. Scriber, Sullivan County’s first official County Historian, wrote about the many changes that had taken place in the village since … more
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The annual commemoration of the Battle of Minisink is tomorrow (Saturday, July 20) at 4 p.m., at the Minisink Battleground Park, 58 County Road 168 in Barryville.
The Battle of Minisink: a Personal View
Dan Myers says the Battle of Minisink is very personal to him. His fourth great-grandfather, also named Daniel Myers, fought in the battle on the desolate Barryville hilltop on July 22, 1779 and … more
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The Declaration of Independence will be read aloud at Fort Delaware tomorrow, followed by a passionate Tory rebuttal, and then... well, who knows what might happen then...
Patriots and Loyalists at Fort Delaware
It used to be a well-kept secret that Cushetunk, the first European settlement in the Upper Delaware River Valley, was populated mostly by Tories in the years immediately preceding and during the … more
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Dr. Alfred Lebbeus Loomis.
Loomis: The Man, the Sanitarium and the Search for the cure
In June of 1896, the face of Sullivan County was changed forever, as the Loomis Memorial Sanitarium for Consumptives just outside Liberty admitted its first 12 patients. The original five … more
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Authorities recover the body of Maurice Carillot from Loch Sheldrake on May 30, 1939.
The corpse in the custom-made suit
Decoration Day, Tuesday, May 30, 1939, turned out to be a day Melvin Holt and George Dubner, two boys from Brooklyn vacationing with their families in Loch Sheldrake, would never forget. Holt … more
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Benjamin Harrison, a Civil War Colonel before he was U.S. President, urged Americans to make Memorial Day a “joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what these men and women did.”
A Triumphant Commemoration
By most accounts, Memorial Day as it is presently celebrated has its roots in the tradition begun on May 30, 1868 of decorating with freshly bloomed flowers the graves of those soldiers who gave … more
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An artist’s depiction of Dr. Benjamin Tusten treating a fellow militia man at the Battle of Minisink on July 22, 1779.
True to his oath
He was born in Southold, Long Island on December 11, 1743, and moved with his family to the banks of the Otterkill near Goshen just three years later. His father, a Colonel in the New York State … more
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Sullivan County District Attorney William Deckelman (left) and Sheriff Harry Borden (on the ground, right) join State Police and Deputy Sheriff Jay Lass in unloading slot machines that had been confiscated in Bethel earlier in the day.
The Annual Slot Machine Battle
Those familiar with the history of the Sullivan County resort industry are well aware of the process. After a long, dormant winter, the resorts awakened in the spring to prepare for the summer … more
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The Lenape settlement they called Manhatta, which is today part of New York City.
The Lenape Language
Neversink, Minisink, Mamakating, Shawangunk-- most people who have lived in Sullivan County for any length of time, or have visited here regularly, are aware of these rather strange sounding place … more
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Hikers at the 2022 Highland History Hike at the Minisink Battleground Park.
Celebrate the Trails at the Minisink Battleground Park
In his ‘History of Sullivan County,” published in 1873, James Eldridge Quinlan labeled Cushetunk resident Nathaniel Evans a “mischief making fellow and a nuisance” to his … more
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The casino at White Roe opened in 1929.
Livingston Manor’s Golden Age Hotels
The summer of 1929 was a significant one in the history of Sullivan County’s resort industry. In Fallsburg, the Flagler Hotel, perhaps the most prominent of the County’s hotels at … more
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