140 Years Ago -1881

A zinc mine is soon to be opened in Wurtsboro.

Harrison Traynor of Callicoon Depot has returned to Kansas.

There were 35 rafts in the Beaverkill between Cooks Falls and Spooner's Eddy.

Joseph S. Hall of Neversink has been appointed Loan Commissioner for this county in place of Mr. Gillespie of Bethel.

A new post office has been established in the Town of Fallsburg, called Divine Corners, and located at a place of that name.

John Schaefer of Jeffersonville recently bought the Richard Williams farm of 50 acres near Briscoe, formerly owned by Cyrus Wagner, for the sum of $700.

The Liberty Board of Excise met last week and granted hotel licenses to John Schafer and James Lynch and a grocery license to F. Sherwood.

The Brass Band treated our citizens to an open air concert on Monday evening last. The rendering of the several arias showed the band had not been idle during the long, cold winter and brought to one's mind visions of picnics, ice cream and lemonade socials, grove dances, etc.

James Bolton, a Chicago millionaire, has bought the McAndrew's farm near Hagan's Pond, and will erect a fine summer residence on it. He is the third millionaire who owns property in this county.

The workmen in the Erie shops at Port Jervis will hereafter work a ten hour day.

A bad landslide occurred at Hawk's Nest, near Sparrow Bush, Sunday which almost entirely filled the canal, and will suspend navigation for a few days. Tons of heavy rocks fell into the canal. Two rafts are lying in the river at Cochecton, near the bridge, ready to be run to market.

130 Years Ago - 1891

A new post office has been established at Hurd Settlement, in the Town of Bethel. It is called Hurd and William H. Pinney has been appointed postmaster.

Frank Kahl, of near Callicoon, has opened a clothing and gents furnishing house in Jeffersonville.

G.H. Neuman of Callicoon has purchased the hotel property, including considerable land, belonging to John Ludwig of that place, for a consideration of $5,000.

A son was born to Mr. and Mrs. William Clark of Briscoe on April 5th.

Fred Bietz is having a large slaughterhouse built on his property at the lower end of town.

Rumor has it that parties contemplate the building of a steam gristmill in Jeffersonville before the return of another winter. We can see nothing but success to follow such an undertaking if handled properly.

John Sander, who lived several miles north of Callicoon, recently sold his farm to Henry Banuat, the original owner.

120 Years Ago -1901

The property known as “The Aroma” in Callicoon Depot, sold by Elias Mitchell to a Paterson party two weeks ago, will be used as a Franciscan college where students will be educated for the Catholic priesthood. Several changes will be made, prominent among which will be the erection of additional buildings, im­proved grounds, etc. September 1st is the date set for its opening.

A farewell party was given John F. Hembdt of the Half-Way House on Saturday. John rose bright and early the next day and started for Binghamton where he is attending Lowell Business College.

Commissioner Michael Scott has erected caution signs at the approach to the iron bridge. The penalty is five dollars for driving over the bridge faster than a walk.

Charles Homer is having the Eagle Hotel repainted. The new colors will be a straw for the body with pink trimming and green blinds. Will Lawrence, Otis Segar and Donald Klein are at work on the job.

The cornerstone of the Sunday School chapel was laid last Friday. Various articles were deposited beneath it, among which were a coin of this year's vintage and a copy of last week's “Record.” There were no special ceremonies connected with the event.

A cow belonging to Patrick McDermott got hold of a box of Paris green on Saturday and devoured the box and contents with as much relish as it would a dose of salt. Pat thought the cow didn't get enough of the poison to hurt her, but in two hours she was dead.

A daughter was born to Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Nearing of Fosterdale.

110 Years Ago - 1911

Mrs. Theodore Koenig, who suffers spells of heart weakness, went to the closet Thurs­day and took the wrong bottle and got a mouthful of carbolic acid before she discovered the mistake. Some of the acid got down her throat but she promptly took sweet milk and other antidotes and Dr. Gain was summoned. The fact the acid was a weak solution probably saved Mrs. Koenig's life.

George H. Raum of Kenoza Lake is making extensive improvements to his store property.

John Link, who recently sold his farm, the Grasmuck place, at Fremont Center, has bought a small property at that place where he and his wife will settle down and grow old.

The state highway commission is advertising for bids to finish up the Jeffersonville and Callicoon road from the stone bridge to Falls Mills.

Lumber is being hauled for the new hall to be erected on the parsonage lot at Kenoza Lake. Kohler and Dietrich of Jeffersonville have the contract.

A son was born April 2nd to George Wagner Jr. and wife of Holiday, Pa. George, a former Kenoza Lake boy, married Miss Florence Hotchkiss last summer.

A group from White Sulphur Springs will present their play, “Aunt Dinah's Quilting Party,” at Durr's Hall, Youngsville, next Thursday. Admission 10¢.

H.U. Krenrich has erected a 24x60 shed on one of his Main Street lots for concrete work. His Main Street house will be occupied by George Lower and family of Newark and he will move to his cottage, on West End Avenue, vacated by Dr. Wilkin.

The Presbyterian Willing Workers on Tuesday night, tendered a farewell surprise to Conrad E. Metzger, who leaves this week to take his first preaching appointment at North Blenheim.

100 Years Ago -1921

Mr. and Mrs. Charles Schaefer of Beechwoods have sent out invitations to the wedding of their daughter, Elizabeth Hedwig, to Phillip William Reum, son of Mr. and Mrs. Valentine Reum of Beechwoods, Tuesday, April 26th.

Frank Gabel and Miss Louisa Dreher of Beechwoods were married April 6th at the parsonage in Callicoon Center.

The Rosary, a boarding house in Monticello, has been sold to Hechter Bros., former owners of the Shawanga Lodge, near Bloomingburg, for $75,000.

Henry Winter, a New York barber, has been engaged to assist in the barbershop of J.G. Smith of Jeffersonville.

Chester G. Yager and family are moving to Liberty where they will occupy rooms in the automobile store building which Mr. Yager is remodeling.

Otto W. Hogencamp of White Sulphur Springs and Miss Marie E. Gilbert of Callicoon Center were married on April 3rd.

Philip Gabel of Beechwoods has taken employment in the state hospital in Middletown.

A son, Harold Eugene, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Will Zieres of North Branch on March 29th.

Mr. and Mrs. Albert E. Oberg of New Rochelle are the parents of a son born April 8th. Mrs. Oberg is the former Marie Lindt of Kenoza Lake.

Winifred Schmidt has finished a nine months business course at a Poughkeepsie school and returned home Saturday.

A son was born April 8th to Mr. and Mrs. Harry Soule of Jeffersonville. Mrs. Soule is the former Elsie Baum.

Hyman Abel, the Maple Avenue butcher, will set up a meat market at Lake Huntington this season.

90 Years Ago - 1931

Alan, the 8-year-old son of James Holmes, is confined to his home by scarlatina. Alan had just gotten over the chicken pox.

Miss Lillian Steinhauser of Callicoon Center married Walter Alterfer of Newark on April 11. After an extended honeymoon in Europe, the bride and groom will live in Newark.

Casper Engert, aged 74, landowner, capitalist and hotel man of the Town of Fremont, died April 12th.

Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Ingber and family of New York moved into the Herbert Grishaber house on Jefferson Ave.

John Lupo, who came here with his family from the city a few months ago and occupied rooms in the Wagner building, is opening a shoemaking shop in the Kispert barbershop building.

W.J. Grishaber has leased the east end of the Ranft building for a showroom for gas ranges. Contractor Dietrich is putting in a new plate glass front.

A bridal shower was tendered Miss Leila Wahl in the Undercroft of St. James Episcopal Church last Wednesday evening. The bride-to-be received many lovely gifts.

Lake Huntington — Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. N. Black of New York City who are the proud parents of a son. Mrs. Black was formerly Sylvia Ferber, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Morris Ferber, owners of Hotel Lorraine.

Formal dedication of the new home and clubhouse of the Monticello Council, Knights of Columbus, was the outstanding feature of the celebration of its thirtieth anniversary at Monticello Monday. Approximately 150 Knights were present.

80 Years Ago -1941

Martha Bernhardt, a graduate of the Delaware Valley Central School last June, has an unusual record in Scouting since she joined the local troop in 1935. At the present time she is the only first class scout in Sullivan County.

At the Callicoon Hospital it was a girl, Betty Lou, to Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Just of Cochecton, March 22.

The strike of about 12 drivers for the Delaware Valley Express which took place on Wednesday morning was settled late the afternoon of March 27 between the owners of the line, Peter Schmidt, Paul Roemer and Ralph Sipple, and a representative of the Union local.

After having been closed for the past several years, the Lake Jefferson Hotel, on the lake at the eastern end of the village of Jeffersonville, will be opened next Thursday by the new owner, Fran Larocco of Swan Lake.

Charles E. Button, vice principal of the Roscoe Central School, was elected superintendent of schools in the second district of Sullivan County at a meeting held on Tuesday. He will replace Charles S. Hick, who has served six years in that office.

Both the sunrise and evening services on Easter Sunday were well attended at the Kenoza Lake Methodist Church.

James Sykes of Jeffersonville won third prize in the Dairymen's League contest.

John Bernhardt of Kenoza Lake is at Camp Lee, Petersburg, Va., where he has been placed in the baking division. At home here, Hans was a concrete mixer, now he is a dough mixer and a real doughboy.

Next Saturday night, Albert C. Berberich will open his new store in the Jacobs building in Youngsville which he bought and fixed up into a fine place for the display and sale of his electrical refrigerators, stoves, etc.

70 Years Ago - 1951

Francis Hanofee, Supervisor of the Town of Liberty, who recently accepted the chairmanship of the Sullivan County Cerebral Palsy Fund Drive, has an­nounced that the Concord Hotel at Kiamesha Lake has given the organization permission to hold an affair there on May 24.

Mrs. Ernest Fimpel, chairman in Jeffersonville for the American Cancer Fund, has announced that a card party will be held on May 3rd at the Jeff Central School. Mrs. Theodore Rittershausen is chairman of the prize committee and Mrs. Nathan Bodenstein is chairman of the hostess committee.

60 Years Ago -1961

Miss Josephine A Vaupel of North Branch died on April 4 at the Liberty Loomis Hospital, at the age of 79 years.

Robert Denman of Livingston Manor has been named to one of the four top spots in the New York State Police. He heads up the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in a reorganization that recently took place.

The Sullivan County Deer Forum will be held at the Hotel Lenape in Liberty May 6 and 7. It is expected that as many as 20 counties will be represented at the forum.

Albert G. Hall, Bureau of Game of the New York State Conservation Department, has an­nounced that the party permit system, first tried last fall, will again be used this coming fall to cut the size of deer herds in the state.

Liberty Businessmen's Association is sponsoring a search for a Miss Sullivan County to represent this area in the New York State beauty pageant to be held at Grossinger's on May 30.

Mrs. Mildred Rapport of Liberty was named area program chairman at the 10th annual political conference of the Women's Division of the Democratic State Committee.

50 Years Ago - 1971

The Long Eddy Methodist Church collapsed under the weight of the winter snow and left only the steeple and the back wall standing. There have been no church services held there for several years.

Grover M. Hermann, Callicoon native and a resident of Pebble Beach, Calif., has contributed another $50,000 to the building fund of the hospital named for him which is now nearing completion on Route 97, two miles south of Callicoon. The money will pay for the construction of offices in the new building which were abandoned after it was found that the cost would exceed the estimate of construction.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Doyle of Long Eddy have announced the engagement of their daughter, Linda, to Craig S. English, son of Comm. and Mrs. F.W. English Jr. of Salinas, Calif.

A mobile hydraulic car crusher has been acquired by Bruleen Metals Ltd. of Ferndale. It will reduce an automobile to a pancake only 7 inches thick. Zalkins, proprietors of Bruleen, have offered to move the equipment anywhere within the county to solve the abandoned vehicle problem.

For the second time in 1971, disaster struck at the well-known Brown's Hotel in Loch Sheldrake when a 40-room guest house was leveled by fire early Saturday. Early in February the accumulation of heavy snow caused a collapse of the room of the resort's Jerry Lewis Playhouse.

Lt. Col. William C. Pfeifer, son of Constant J. Pfeifer of RFD 1, Callicoon, is a member of the 313th Tactical Airlift Wing at Forbes Air Force, Kansas, that has earned the U.S. Air Force Outstanding Unit Award. The 313th, with a five-year accident free flying record, was cited for exemplary mission accomplishment during a two-year period. Col. Pfeifer is a navigator with the unit.

40 Years Ago - 1981

William M. “Billy” Moran, 20, was injured in a hit and run accident in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Saturday, March 31, and died three days later at the Halifax Hospital Medical Center. Young Moran was in Florida with the Union College baseball team, which had gone south for a period of spring training. He pitched against a St. Louis Cardinal farm team Friday as part of the spring training scrimmage for Union. Billy was the son of Kathleen (Buddenhagen) and William Moran of Hortonville. He is also survived by two sisters, Terri of Windsor, Conn., and Deborah, at home, and his paternal grandmother, Marie Moran of Liberty.

Thelma Davis, 68, longtime innkeeper in the area, died April 1, at home. She had remained active in the operation of Davis' Callicoon Inn until very recent weeks... Andrew Parker, 75, of Eldred, died Sunday, March 29, at St. Francis Hospital in Port Jervis. He was a retired building contractor and a director of the First National Bank of Jeffersonville.

Evelyn Karasik of Monticello, a deputy sheriff with the Sullivan County Sheriff's Department, died March 31, at Community General Hospital... Moe Sussman, the first director of the Real Property Tax Service for Sullivan County, died March 31, at the Community General Hospital.

Students at the Delaware Valley Central School raised $404 for the American Cancer Society last year by selling daffodils. They anticipate raising $830 this year.

In the first of an annual program, the New York State Electric and Gas Corporation recently honored these employees for completion of long term accident-free employment: Clarence Loucks, 29 years; Harold Kellam, 27 years; Walt Bury, 24 years; Joe Gieger, 23 years; Charles Haiss, 22 years; Dave Cross, 21 years; and Art Bailey, 20 years.

30 years ago - 1991

“Look at those buckets, they're filled to the brim,” Irene Andersen of the Andersen Maple Sugar Farm in Long Eddy pointed to the overflowing buckets hanging from the farm's maple trees while the students of two fourth grade classes from the Monticello School District looked on. The students were witnesses to one of the best harvests of maple syrup Sullivan County has seen in the last three years.

The Village of Liberty is expected to award bids for the construction of a new state police barracks on village land at its meeting Monday, Village Manager Donald Whitman said Thursday. The bids of $450,000, opened March 21, were found at or below estimates.

Tammi Reiss of Eldred, playing guard for the Virginia Cavaliers, will be playing for the third time in as many years in the NCAA Division I women's basketball semi-finals this Saturday in New Orleans. A guard for Virginia, Tammi still has the same shot that helped her score more than 2,600 points in her high school career. Her 2,640 points still holds as a record for any New York high school player in basketball, boy or girl.

It was an inauspicious start to the 1991 season yesterday as fishermen across New York State resumed that annual ritual known as trout fishing. Roscoe's Junction Pool was again packed with fishermen even before 6 a.m. Slightly warmer temperatures the rest of the week should produce conditions more conducive to fishing.

The community of Fremont Center is making plans for its 107th Memorial Day Parade. The theme this year will be “The Bill of Rights - 200 Years.”

The Long Eddy Fire Department will observe its 84th anniversary as of July 31. The following excerpt from the Basket Historical Society publication, “The Echo,” states “Some time in 1915, the Hose Company had a ‘hose house' with a ‘drying tower,' which housed a two-wheel hose cart, hand drawn. During this time the fire alarm was the whistle of the then-running chemical company. When the whistle sounded, the hose cart was moved to the nearest hydrant and the hose was charged to combat the fire. The hydrant at this time was a very effective system with sufficient pressure to fight large fires. The hydrant system was part of the Long Eddy Water Company, believed to be over one hundred years old. The hose company was located on the Raspberry Park Road until it washed away early in the century. After that the fire truck was housed in the basement of Charles Bjorklund, believed to have been a fire chief. A new firehouse was built in 1950.”

Cynthia Ann Davis of Rodenbach, Germany, and David Alan Mudge, son of Noreen and Gerald “Skip” Mudge of Callicoon and stationed in Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany with the Air Force, were married October 20, 1990. She is employed by the Catholic Youth Ministry in the United States Air Force and is the daughter of Sanford E. and Barbara J. Clark of Fountain Valley, Calif.

20 years ago - 2001

Sullivan County Democrat staff captured four awards this past weekend at the 2001 New York Press Association's spring convention. Democrat reporter/photographer Ted Waddell captured the first place plaque for the In-Depth Reporting category for his multi-part series about MTBE and how it affected drinking water in the village of Liberty.

The Delaware Valley Arts Alliance celebrated its 25th anniversary of bringing art with a capital A to Sullivan County and the Upper Delaware River Valley last weekend with a gala held at the Club at Villa Roma in Callicoon.

The Hudson Valley Golden Retriever Club hosted its annual dog show at Sullivan County Community College in Loch Sheldrake last weekend.

WJFF/Radio Catskill will present its ninth annual Spring Folk Concert with Canadian folk­singer David Francey at the Western Hotel in Callicoon.

Danielle D. Fiorille, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Fiorelle of Jeffersonville, and Scott M. DuBois, son of Mr. and Mrs. Gregory DuBois Sr. of Cochecton, exchanged wedding vows on July 15, 2000, at the First Grace Evangelical Lutheran Parish in Jeffersonville.

A daughter, Bridget Marie, was born March 15, 2001, to Kevin and Jackie Graham of Callicoon. She joins two brothers, Patrick and Sean, and a sister, Kelly, at home.

10 years ago - 2011

The Village of Liberty Police and the Sullivan County District Attorney's Office combined efforts to bring down a high-level drug dealer in the village. Kevin McFadden, was taken into custody without incident when police executed a “no-knock” warrant at his apartment. Police with the help of K-9 “Chase” rooted out approximately 30 grams of crack cocaine, a small amount of marijuana, packaging materials, a scale and over $25,000 in cash. McFadden was charged with the Class B felonies of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree with intent to sell and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree for a narcotic drug weighing more than one half ounce.

The first full day of spring featured a larger than expected snowstorm, closing several school districts, catching many drivers by surprise. While most of the incidents were fender-benders, the slushy conditions led to two fatal accidents.

The first Sullivan Not-for-Profit Leadership Summit took place at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts with more than 140 participants representing not-for-profit agencies serving Sullivan County. The event featured several small group sessions as well as educational sessions by the New York Council of Nonprofits, the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York and Convio, Inc. on topics ranging from consolidating nonprofit organizations to ‘how-to' effectively fundraise using online tools. Jonathan Drapkin of Rock Hill, president of the Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress, delivered the day's keynote address and provided several different examples of collaboration already in place in Sullivan County, to illustrate his point that despite the difficulties, collaboration is possible and necessary in Sullivan County.