Meredith Historical Society Program Recovered Stories from Our Town

MEREDITH — The Meredith Historical Society will present a program on Thursday, September 19, 2024, at 7 PM. Excerpts from primary sources, drawing upon period newspapers and scrapbooks, will be dramatized and contextualized by Meredith Historical Society interpreters. The program will capture the rhythms of daily life as experienced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by the individuals of the Delaware County town of Meredith. Work, livestock, recreation, organizations, coming of age, schooling, transportation and technology, local government, and crises will receive attention. The ensemble of local history presenters includes Gabrielle Pierce, Neil Riddell, Linda Riddell, Jim Cooros, Nancy Simons, Cynthia Waterman, and Frank Waterman. Waterman, the author of several regional history books, is the president and primary Meredith Historical Society researcher. 

The readings will include a recount of Albert Strickland’s trip to Oneonta to see the first passenger train to arrive in 1865, an 1892 flood in East Meredith, an evening program in East Meredith’s Thompson Hall in 1893, Pearl Johnson’s experience in 4-H in the 1920’s, Charlie Haynes’ recollections of his years working as a blacksmith in East Meredith, and the forced closing of the venerable District 16 School in Shackport in 1967.

The program is free and open to the general public. The presentation will be held at the home of the Meredith Historical Society in the former Charlotte Valley Presbyterian Church, located at 10044 Elk Creek Rd, East Meredith, New York. For further information, contact Meredith Historical Society President Frank Waterman at  Fwaterman4@gmail.com 

Light refreshments will follow the presentation.