Terwilliger House Museum
The Terwilliger House Museum is a late nineteenth century Queen Anne Victorian house built in 1895, an appropriate setting for the library's extensive local history collection.
The museum's permanent collection preserves examples of glass jug, bottles and "whimsies" from Ellenville Glass Works and stoneware made at the Ellenville Pottery, products of industries that flourished in the heyday of the Delaware and Hudson Canal in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The second floor features the Joseph Y. Resnick Room, with photographs and memorabilia from the late congressman's tenure in Washington in the 1960's. Mr. Resnick was an Ellenville native. A display devoted to Clayton's Military Band--complete with a model bandstand and costumed mannequins--inhabits the second floor hallway as a testament to the band's nearly eighty year tradition as the pride of Ellenville.
Glass plate negatives, historic post cards and oral history cds complement the collection of artifacts and research material housed in the museum. The museum's research files contain a treasure trove of articles, ephemera and photographs. Other highlights of the research room include: Cemetery Records, Obituaries, Civil War Muster Rolls, Yearbooks from Ellenville Central School, Old Telephone Directories, Books on local history and environment, and books by local authors.
Museum Hours
Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 12 noon - 3 pm and by appointment.
Visit our Digital Collections at
Hudson River Valley Heritage
HUDSON RIVER VALLEY HISTORY
The mission of HRVH is to provide universal access to a collaborative digital record of Hudson River Valley history and creativity. HRVH provides access to historical materials from digital collections contributed by colleges, libraries, archives, historical societies, museums and cultural organizations from the following counties in New York State: Columbia, Greene, Dutchess, Ulster, Sullivan, Rockland, Orange, Putnam, and Westchester. Organizations continue to contribute collections that contain a variety of photographs, maps, letters, postcards, manuscripts, scrapbooks, programs from events, memorabilia and ephemera, and audio and video clips. Many of these collections include unique historical resources not previously available in digital format.
YAMA FARMS INN: A Home in the Mountains
This website tells the story of Yama Farms, a unique early twentieth century resort located in Napanoch, NY. http://www.yamafarmsinn.net/Yama_Farms_Inn__A_Home_in_the_Mountains/Building_Yama-no-uchi.html
CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS & SAILORS
http://www.civilwar.nps.gov/cwss/
This site has basic facts about servicemen who served in the Civil War, histories of the Union and Confederate Armies, and links to descriptions of battles. The Ulster County Genealogical Society recommends that a variety of spellings be used when searching for an ancestor, as the site is very exacting with regard to spellings. Furthermore, they suggest that "since the soldiers frequently completed their service, and then re-entered the war under a different regiment, please be open to the possibility that your ancestor may be listed under a different regiment.than your previous research may have shown."
DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution)
http://www.dar.org/library/online_reasearch.cfm
<http://www.dar.org/library/online-reasearch.cfm>
To search for your patriot ancestor, click on "Click Image to Open GRS" (located towards the top right hand side of the page). Spelling is exact. The results show the patriot's time of service and the name of his spouse. Also shown are a portion of their descendants. Copies of the original applications can be ordered and downloaded online.
OLDE ULSTER
www.archive.org/search
Olde Ulster is a Historical and Genealogical website based upon a magazine published from 1905 until 1914, containing a lot of Ulster County historical and genealogical stories. The Allen County Public Library has digitized 5 years of this publication.
ONLINE CLASSES
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp
Did you ever wish that you could take a mini-class on a particular genealogy
topic: If so, check out the above sit.Run your cursor over Research Helps, at the top of the pages, and select Online Classes. Then choose from dozens of free classes.
Ellenville Public Library & Museum thanks the Ulster County Genealogical Society for the above recommended sites, printed here with their permission from their Vol. 39, #1 Jan.2011 newsletter, The Genie.
Search Records from Ulster County Archives, a resource of the Ulster County Clerk’s Office http://www.co.ulster.ny.us/archives/
“The Archives operates under the auspices of the Ulster County Clerk. The Archives is responsible for the identification, arrangement, access and preservation of archival records belonging to Ulster County. Describing archival records is an on-going process. All currently available descriptions are posted and accessible. The Ulster County Archives is located in the Ulster County Record Center, 300 Foxhall Avenue, Kingston, New York, 12401. The Archives staff can be reached at 845-340-3415 Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST. The Archives is open to researchers on Wednesdays, by appointment only. Please call the Archives to schedule an appointment regarding your record request and any applicable fees.” From the Ulster County Archives Division of the Ulster County Clerk’s Office website.
"To honor New York State's participants in the Civil War
and commemorate the sesquicentennial"
The purpose of The New York State Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee and this website is to bring attention to New York's participation in the Sesquicentennial Commemoration of the American Civil War. If you are an organization participating in the Sesquicentennial and would like to be listed on this website, please send us the name of your organization, contact info, website address, schedule of events, etc.
http://www.nycivilwar150.org/index.html
http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/mssc/bullrun
NewYorkHeritage.org
NewYorkHeritage.org is a research portal for students, educators, historians, genealogists, and others who are interested in the Empire State's history. NewYorkHeritage.org is your gateway to hundreds of digital collections about New York State's people, places, and institutions. NewYorkHeritage.org brings together freely accessible digital collections from libraries, museums and archives from all over the state. See New York State's rich and unique history told through images, artifacts and documents--just a click away! NewYorkHeritage.org is a project of the NY 3Rs Association. http://www.newyorkheritage.org/index.php
Interested in history? Go to eplm.org and click on the Research Tools Tab. From there, you can visit Ancestry Plus in the RCLS databases (click on the History & Genealogy Resources tab) or go to the Ulster County InfoPortal and search on HeritageQuest or Ancestry.com. Over 700 people visited genealogy websites through our databases last year.
Grand Army of the Republic, Ward Post No. 191, Ellenville, N.Y.
One of the many local treasures in EPL&M’s Terwilliger House museum is a Civil War ledger, “Personal War Sketches”. It was presented to Ward Post No. 191 in 1897 by Mrs. John R. Norbury in memory of her father, Mr. Phineas Stoddard, and donated to EPL&M by the estate of Deyo Johnson.
http://www.hrvh.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/eplm&CISOPTR=829&CISOSHOW=573
This original ledger, in excellent condition, contains the personal records of local soldiers who enlisted in the 1861-65 “War Between the States”, and many recollections of those who were fortunate enough to return home. Horror and honor line the pages of this magnificent volume. For the next several months, the ledger will not be available to the public while it is being microfilmed. By 2011, we will have an archival microfilm copy of the ledger stored for posterity, and a public access “positive” copy for people to view at the library. The volume itself will be returned to EPL&M, and stored in an archival wrapper, safe from light and overuse. It will be available for special exhibits and research.
In addition, the Board of Trustees has approved the digitization of the ledger. When paired with “meta-data”, or information about the digital image, this cyber copy can be uploaded to our website. EPL&M plans to transcribe the information about each soldier recorded the register so that it is easy to read and will be “searchable” by date, name or regiment on line.
This project is happening now in view of our special 2011 thematic programming, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. The “Ward” Post was named in honor of Captain Pelatiah Ward, Co. E20th, NYSM. When the Civil War began, Ward was Pastor at the Methodist Church on Canal Street. He was wounded at the battle of Manassas, VA. On August 30, 1862, and died two days later at the age of 43.
To learn more, please see the article written by Marion M. Dumond in the November, 2004 issue of WAWARSING.net. Thank you to Laura Smith, for gathering the information about the G.A.R. Ledger for our newsletter.
EPL&M’S MICROFILM COLLECTION
Back when our museum was housed “underground”, and Ellenville Public Library & Museum was located in the Hunt Memorial Building, we received a grant to photograph and microfilm our collection of original copies of The Ellenville Journal, Ellenville Press and other local publications, many from the 1800’s. Today, we have over 100 microfilms, which are widely used by community members. Periodically, the collection needs to be inventoried, evaluated, and when necessary, upgraded.
EPL&M is happy to announce that we have completed our microfilm inventory and upgrade, thanks to the expertise of Hudson Microimaging in Port Ewing. Master copies that were showing signs of deterioration were replaced, as were public access copies that were worn or scratched from use. A set of master negatives will be kept in the archival vaults at Hudson Microimaging, and a second set of Master Negatives is now housed here at the library. In addition, our public access copies are all “positives”, which makes them easier to read and more ecological to print. Microfilms are available to the public during regular library hours.
Why microfilm? The New York State Archives does not accept preservation plans that use other methods (such as digitation, which has yet to prove its longevity), and requires that microfilm be the basis of archival preservation. While digitation does make public access to archives, such as our historic newspapers, easier, our first priority is conservation, especially given financial constraints. Microfilms in good condition can, in the future, be used to create digital copies. A more expensive and archivally risky process would be to make digital images directly from the bound copies of the original publications in the museum. Meantime, we continue to develop our local history microfilm collection, adding contemporary films of our local Shawangunk Journals annually, as well as housing copies of the originals for posterity. Please call us at (845)647-5530 with any questions, or to make a donation in support of our historic collections.
