Middletown Thrall Library, Middletown, New York 10940 ~ Phone: (845) 341-5483

Hours
Thursdays 6-8 PM (please make an appointment for Thursdays a week in advance).
Open by appointment. Please call or e-mail the Local History Librarian for an appointment.

Telephone
(845) 341-5483 (Local History Office).

E-mail
You can also e-mail the Local History Librarian at thrall3@warwick.net for local history questions or appointments to use the Local History Room.

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The Local History Room contains books on the history of Orange County as well as neighboring counties, city directories, genealogies, railroads, canals, the Catskills, church records, cemetery records, folklore, and more.

Serials include the Middletown and New Jersey Railway Historical Society Newsletter, The Unionville Flyer, O & W Railway Historical Society Observer, Orange County Genealogical Society Quarterly, Orange County Historical Society Journal, Middletown Historical Society publications, Signs of the Times (Old School Baptist newspaper), Orange County Land Trust newsletter and publications, Orange County Times Past, etc.

Special Collections include the records of Elizabeth Stivers Mills (historical and genealogical information about a variety of Orange County people, places and events)

Special Studies on the Orange County Landfill, Stewart Airport, Orange County Jail, Galleria at Crystal Run, etc.

Reference Area Materials, First Floor

Winter Hours: Mon - Thu 9 - 8, Fri 9 - 6, Sat 10 - 5, Sun 1 - 5.

Summer Hours: Same except for Sat. 10 - 2 and closed on Sun.

Contents: microfilm for Orange County newspapers dating back to 1851 (Whig Press), city directories dating back to 1871, and a selection of local history books. There are reference books on genealogy, a shelf of local history books behind the Reference Desk, as well as a computer dedicated for genealogical research.

Digital History Initiative

Middletown Thrall Library is using the Internet to expand access to Local History information. Click here to learn more about this project and to read texts already digitized.

Photographs from the Historical Society

Middletown Thrall Library has been permitted by Historical Society of Middletown and the Wallkill Precinct, Inc. to digitize part of their extensive photographic collection and make them available on the Internet and on computer in the library. These images highlight notable features in and around the City of Middletown, including schools, buildings, businesses, places of worship, streets, trains and train stations. Class photos and a variety of personalities also populate this vivid exhibit. You may access these photographs at http://www.thrall.org/photos. The library has presented to the historical society a CD-ROM containing images digitized for this project.

Local History Links

A new guide to Internet sites offering a wealth of local history and genealogical information for your research and personal enrichment. Click here.

Obituary Database

Middletown Thrall Library has created an obituary database which you may search. To access the database please click here. For more information or assistance please call 341-5483.

Documenting the Agricultural Records
of the Black Dirt Region

Middletown Thrall Library has recently published Documenting the Agricultural Records of the Black Dirt Region. This documentation project was funded in part by a grant from the New York State Archives Documentary Heritage Program, 1997 - 98. You may read the report, in its entirety, here at our website at http://www.thrall.org/blackdirt. Copies of the report are also available at the library in the Local History room.