MTHS Blog

Cemetery Tour & Twilight Inn Fire

Thank you for the outstanding turnout to our “If These Stones Could Talk” Cemetery Tour last Saturday morning! More than 40 people joined Joanne Ainsworth and Dede Terns-Thorpe to explore the histories behind the gravestones in the Haines Falls Cemetery and the Haines Family Cemetery. One of the stops along the tour was a large stone memorial to those who lost their lives in the Twilight Inn Fire in Haines Falls, which occurred the evening of July 14, 1926. I’ve shared here some images taken during the aftermath of the tragedy that claimed at least 19 lives and detailed some of the tidbits from the events of the fire as reported by the New York Times below. The images are from the MTHS Archives. The last photo shows the memorial to the victims of the fire at the Haines Falls Cemetery.
 
During the cemetery tour, we listened to the story of how Susan Tressler’s grandmother’s body was exhumed in the Haines Falls Cemetery for reasons that are still not entirely clear. You can revisit the story or listen to it for the first time on our Soundcloud at: http://tinyurl.com/2p98s9fe You can also listen to an oral history interview conducted with a survivor of the fire conducted by Justine Hommel in 1982 at: http://tinyurl.com/mr3s4uw5
 
 
The Twilight Inn Fire
July 14, 1926
 
The fire began just before one in the morning in the male workers’ quarters after most guests and employees had gone to sleep for the night. Carl Stryker, the night watchman, worked to alert everyone in the building of the fire’s threat and guide them safely outside. Stryker entered the building six times to locate and recover folks. Tragically, the last time he entered the building the floor collapsed, and Stryker’s life was taken.
 
Tannersville residents Harold and Leon Terns were the first locals to arrive on the scene of the fire. They went in and out of the burning building three times to rescue people. Miss Hannah Hyatt, a guest, led twelve other guests to safety through a trapdoor. She suffered two broken ribs in the process. One mother was forced to throw her six-year-old child out a second story window to a man standing below. She managed to jump out of the window after him. Another guest reentered the building to find her husband, not knowing that he had already managed to make it safely outside. She died in the effort.
 
 
 
 
Despite later reports of the inn’s lack of fire safety infrastructure, the Inn was properly equipped with fire extinguishers and guide ropes, as well as a wooden fire escape. Despite these safety implements, which were in line with the code for the time, many were not able to find their way out through the smoke and flames as it rapidly consumer the wooden Inn.
 
Reports said that the blaze developed so rapidly that it could be seen for miles. By the time the local fire companies arrived, the fire had so fully engulfed the building that the opportunity to stop its path had passed. Screams were reportedly heard on the upper floors where guests remained trapped. Once the water from the firetruck was exhausted, water was pumped out of the creek to help extinguish the flames and an evening rain helped the process along.
 
The number of wounded people overwhelmed the nurse and available beds at the Red Cross Hospital in nearby Tannersville. Locals were rallied to provide additional cots and care for the wounded.
 
 
The New York Times reported that the bodies recovered from the inn were so badly burned they were beyond identification. One means that was developed to identify the dead was to monitor what mail remained uncollected in the days following the fire.
A monument dedicated to the victims of the fire was erected in the nearby Haines Falls Cemetery behind the Methodist Church. Interestingly, the year of the fire is listed as 1925 not 1926.
 
 
 
The monument reads:
 
“In memory of those who lost their lives in Twilight Inn Fire July 14, 1925
Herbert E. Beardsley
His Mother
Henrietta L. Beardsley
Charlotte Brinton
Herman Engle
His Wife
Adelaide S. Engle
Mary Erdelin
Julia H. Hennesey
Anne E. Milbank
Ernest Poetzsch
Isabel Chapman Brooks
Florence Chapman Monroe
Little Billy Deyarmon
Carl Stryker
Kate E. Thomas"
 
Post by Alexandra

Twain on the Mountain

Recently we were pleased to offer research support to two staff members from the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut who are putting together an exhibit on Samuel Clemens’ summer vacation experiences, including his time on the Mountain Top.


Samuel Clemens on the porch of the Wake Robin at Onteora Park in 1890.

During the summer of 1890, Samuel Clemens (pen name Mark Twain) and his family rented The Balsam cottage at Onteora Park, a private community and mountain retreat for writers, artists and wealthy families in Tannersville. After his stay, Clemens wrote his host and Park founder Candace Wheeler: “Dear Mrs. Wheeler,--It was the perfection of a visit: just enough rain, just enough sunshine; just enough people, & just the right kind; just enough exercise, just enough lazying around; just enough of everything desirable, & no lack of anything usual to the details of a lark away from home…If any should ask me if we had a good time there, I should answer that it was just a model case of ‘Oh hellyes!’”

Clemens’ visit to the Mountain Top in many ways overlapped with a golden period of his life. He was among the “who’s who” in America as a nationally celebrated author having recently published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its famous sequel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Not long after his stay at Onteora, Clemens would experience a devastating series of financial misfortunes and the untimely deaths of his two young daughters and wife. 

 

 

A portrait of Samuel Clemens by Carroll Beckwith, painted at Onteora Park in 1890.

 

While Clemens did not manage to finish any writing at Onteora Park, he delighted Park members with readings, enjoyed meals accompanied by a live orchestra, partook in evening dances, staged impromptu plays with his young daughters, and sat for a portrait by Carroll Beckwith (see above). Clemens also joined in on a gentleman’s bear hunt, a popular thrill for wealthy summer residents. Doris West Brooks recounted the story of Clemens and the bear hunt in a 1986 edition of The Hemlock:

“It wasn’t unusual for a hunting party to come down from Onteora Park to Uncle David’s home in the East Kill Valley. A bear would be released from the cage down by the creek for the gentlemen hunters to shoot. It was at the height of Twain’s popularity that he decided to join just such a party. A friend of Twain’s, with a new invention, a movie camera, accompanied him. By the time the hunting party was underway, there were numerous ladies and men in the entourage. 

The ladies were attired in their white gowns and carried pastel parasols. The man with his movie camera and numerous gentlemen with rifles all descended on David and Etta, his wife. The ladies were given chairs aligned along the back of the house. Aunt Etta served them lemonade. The men stood down by the creek with guns ready. Mark Twain’s friend stood by to capture this moment for posterity. He would have a memorable news reel indeed!

Uncle David opened the cage door and prodded the bear to leave. The bear came charging out. He was supposed to go running across the creek so the men could get a good shot at him, but instead came charging directly into the group of men, scattering them in all directions. The cameraman dropped his wonderful new toy. The ladies were all very satisfactorily hysterical.”

The exhibit at the Mark Twain House detailing Clemens' time on the Mountain Top is slated to open in 2023. We look forward to visiting.

-Alexandra

 

 

Inside the Archives: A Q&A with Bob Gildersleeve & John Curran

From the Spring 2022 edition of The Hemlock

Every Wednesday, MTHS board members Bob Gildersleeve and John Curran volunteer their time to manage and digitize the extensive collections held in the MTHS Archives. After a year-long hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Bob and John have been back in the archives working diligently all winter to make up for lost time. The following Q&A provides a closer look at the important work they are engaged in.

Q: What is your connection to the Mountain Top?

John: I have lived on the Mountain Top my entire life. Growing up on Osborne Road in Haines Falls, the North-South Lake recreation area was close enough to walk or bicycle to. I spent a lot of time there as I was growing up and learned to appreciate the beauty of the mountains and nature. It is still one of my favorite places. I have been on the MTHS Board since 2009 when I retired from the New York State Office of General Services. Bob Gildersleeve started teaching me the workings of the Archives shortly thereafter and I have been enjoying it ever since.

Bob: Even though my roots go back eleven generations in New York State, I’m not a native to the Catskills. I was born in Newburgh, NY and came here to teach at Hunter Tannersville Central in the 1970s. I immediately became interested in the region. I’ve been working with the Archives since it was established from materials collected by Justine Hommel and others.

Q: How would you describe the MTHS Archives?

John: Our archives are comprised mostly of documents and photographs related to our local history. The items are cataloged, scanned and the pertinent searchable data is entered into our Past Perfect database. The items are then stored in archival-grade containers in our climate-controlled, fire-resistant Archives. Many items are used in temporary displays and as learning aids during programs. All items are available for public viewing upon request.


Bob: The collection is almost exclusively paper items including photographs, postcards, books, brochures, deeds, letters from the 19th and early 20th centuries, a diary or two, and business papers. There are also a few fabric items.

Q: Why are the Archives important?

John: Historical documents are continually aging. If not stored properly, they will deteriorate. Our climate-controlled, highly fire-resistant archives provide a safe place to store documents. We only use archival grade storage materials. Documents not stored properly are also subject to loss and or damage.

Bob: Preserving the history of any community is important to its residents, and certainly our Mountain Top is no exception. Some communities, however, have more than local significance. In many ways, our Mountain Top has national and even international importance. The Society gets frequent requests for information from around the US and occasionally from abroad. The reasons are many: the importance of the Greene County Catskills in American art and literature, the area’s impact on tourism, and its recreation history.

Q: Every week you volunteer your time working in the Archives. What draws you to this work?
John: Learning local history and sharing what I have learned. I can’t just enter an item into our database without reading or studying it. If it is something I am familiar with, I share what I know about it. If it is something I am not familiar with, I ask questions and research. Yes, it can slow the process, but it keeps our work interesting and keeps us coming back.

Q: What are some of the tasks you perform in the Archives?

John: Mostly I enter items into our searchable Past Perfect database, which includes assigning an Accession and Object number, scanning the item and entering the pertinent data. I also do research to identify people, places and things; respond to inquiries; provide material for MTHS displays and programs; and eventually store the items.

Q: What is your favorite collection or item the Archives hold?

John: Oddly, one of my favorite items is something we do not physically have. We only have a high-resolution image of it. This is the 1883 Hexamer Survey of the Hotel Kaaterskill. The Hexamer Survey is a fire safety survey of the Hotel Kaaterkill performed by Hexamer & Sons of Philidelphia. It has detailed drawings of the layout of the hotel and descriptions of its various infrastructures. Having had a career in construction, I found this item not only fascinating, but invaluable to our research on the Hotel Kaaterskill. It has been used on hikes to the site and has enabled us to make sense of the layout of the huge hotel. We are indebted to our friend Scott Koster for sharing his finding with us, and The Philadelphia Free Library for providing a high-resolution scan of the document.

Bob: In particular, I like a beautiful photo-realistic painting by Robert Skiba that shows both the Catskill and Tannersville and the Ulster and Delaware Railroads. Skiba started with a Detroit Photographic Company image of Haines Falls in the collection of the Library of Congress. Through careful research and with great skill, he added details including the Coal and Hay company, the siding and stone wall and trains. 

Q: What projects are you working on currently?

John: I have been working on the Joan Wright and Doug Griffin Collections. Mrs. Wright is a descendent of the Haines and Dunn families and provided us with a large collection of family photographs, writings, and family history; most are labeled with names and dates. Mr. Griffin’s collection consists of about 260 postcards of local and nearby places. There are several rare and unusual postcards, many are unused and all are in excellent condition.

Q: What is your future vision for the Archives and how they will be used by the public?

John: I would eventually like to see our database available to the public online. This would be a monumental task to accomplish, but it is my hope that someday it will come to pass.

Bob: We’d like to make better use of the Joan Brower collection and genealogical information. Neither of us are genealogists, and, except for dabbling into our personal family histories, are not equipped to round out the collection.

Q: What are some of the Archives’ more significant collections?

John: Two that stand out to me are the Joan Brower Collection and the Bob Mazon Collection. The Joan Brower Collection traces the Brower family history, but it is much more than that. Mrs. Brower traces the family history of the Brower spouses and the history of the professions and trades the Brower family occupied. It was all done pre-internet and consists of many large organized and indexed binders filled with letters, photos, newspaper clippings and much more. The Bob Mazon Collection is a huge mainly digital collection of photographs. Bob Mazon was a local photographer who through his photography, documented many local events, news stories, local landscapes, local places and much more from the 1980s up through his death in 2014. The collection will be an extremely valuable resource to future generations. We are grateful that both of these people entrusted their collections to us.

Contact Bob and John at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to inquire about volunteer opportunities in the Archives

“The Lord and the Devil and the Bleu Mountains”

A folk tale about the origins of the Catskills and why digging a hole in your spring garden can perhaps more accurately be called excavating. Excerpted from Doris West Brooks’s Short Stories and Tall Tale of the Catskills.
 
 
"As the area around the Catskill Mountains was being settled, not only did the name of the mountains change from time to time, but the spelling of the names varied widely. Both the names “Catskill” and “Blue Mountains” were used interchangeably to designate this region. There is no doubt as to how the name Blue (Bleu, Blew) Mountains came into being; the mountains have a very definite blue color to them especially when seen from a distance... The early Dutch settlers knew the Devil flew about the Bleu Mountains. This is one of the reasons why the Dutch preferred settling in the fertile Hudson River Valley and the foothills of the mountains. Folklore tells us that there were two versions of how the Catskills were formed. Here is the story combining the two tales. (The Lord’s creation and the Devil’s)...
 
All the while the Devil flew about on his devious way, wreaking havoc and causing mischief, he carried a sack of rocks on his back. One day, way back when the Lord was just finishing up the world, the Devil was called to California on urgent business. This was way back when the continents were still flat, the waters just receding, and time was measured in epochs, not years. The Devil stayed on the west coast for a long while for he had a lot to attend to there. His sack, containing the rocks, became tattered and worn. Well, the Devil heard that there were fresh pickings back east and off he flew, not knowing his sack had a rent in it. He wouldn’t have cared anyway. As the devil flew over Arizona, one of his medium-sized rocks fell through the rip in his bag. The rock landed with such impact that it bounced, splintering into hundreds of fragments. The hole the rock left in Arizona was later referred to as The Grand Canyon. The many fragmented pieces of the stone landed all in a row, creating the Rocky Mountains.
 
...Just as he got directly over where we’re standing now, the rip in the Devil’s sack gave out completely and what was left of his rocks was dumped right here, forming the Catskill Mountains. Now it hadn’t taken the Lord nearly as much time to finish His work as it had the Devil, and He didn’t have much of anything left over to hide that pile of bare rocks, and, anyway, He was busy. The Lord has just created the rainbow and because the rainbow was made on the bias, He had a lot of color left over. The Lord was making extra birds and flowers out of the left-over scraps of color and, out of the tiniest bits of yellows and blues, He was fashioning butterflies. He figured the world couldn’t have enough butterflies, and, besides, He was enjoying Himself. Heaven knows, he needed a vacation after all that work creating the world and after all the problems He’d encountered with one of His latest experiments. It had been all down hill ever since the Garden of Eden. You can imagine how annoying it was at this point to be told that there was a heap of rocks in upper New York State that needed His immediate attention. The Lord just took up a handful of dirt left over from another job and flung it in the general direction of the Catskill Mountains. And that is how the Catskills were made and why to this very day there is only “one dirt to every three stones."
 
  1. Shirley Wiltse Dunn - A farewell tribute
  2. Celebrating the life of Justine Legg Hommel
  3. A Visit to the St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church
  4. "I Never Objected to the Sapping"
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