Delaware Company gears up for America’s 250th

By Manor Ink Staff

Narrowsburg, NY – Plans are afoot for celebratory and educational events as America commemorates the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.

John Conway, long-time Sullivan County historian and executive director of The Delaware Company which operates the Fort Delaware Museum, explained that this year’s events at the Fort will highlight the local impacts of the war by dividing the community between Loyalists and Patriots, and the atrocities each side perpetuated against the other side, including the infamous Battle of Minisink.

From July 17 to 19, there will be a weekend long event at the Minisink Battleground to include historical exhibits, encampments and reenactments, food, music and a commemoration. A time capsule placed on the Battleground in 1976 will be opened and a new one buried. There will also be a dedication of a new Minuteman statue.

Fort Delaware will have events throughout the spring and summer, including its Cushetunk Kids program where children 8 to 12 will learn skills such as fire starting and candle making, will play colonial era games and will get a taste of military drilling from the era.

Meanwhile, the Sullivan County Semi-quincentennial Commission is also working on a number of projects for the year, including a film festival, a radio program (already airing on Catskill News Talk, 94.9 FM and 270 AM), a Minisink weekend, a bus tour of Revolutionary War landmarks in the county and a performance by History at Play of “A Revolution of Her Own,” a play about Deborah Sampson, a woman who disguised herself as a man to fight in the war.

Conway and this wife Debra are co-chairs of the Commission, and he said that they are working on an initiative to identify, clean up and mark the graves of Revolutionary soldiers buried in Sullivan County.

Donna Steffens, executive director of Time and the Valleys Museum in Grahamsville, and herself a descendant of Revolutionary War veterans from Long Island, has also created a travelling exhibition entitled “History in Your Own Backyard: Sullivan County and the Revolution.” It will be available to K through 12th grade classrooms starting this month.

In addition to the Conways, Steffens is also a member of the Commission, as is Kelly Agar, a Revolutionary War re-enactor; Dan Hust, the county’s director of communications; Ruth Hugler, a historian and member of the Daughters of the American Revolution; Virdanna Lawrence, Town of Mamakating historian; Lynn Priebe, a former social studies teacher and a DAR member; and Kristina Snedeker, Town of Cochecton historian.

For updates on the Fort Delaware Museum’s 250th anniversary plans, visit thedelawarecompany.org/fort-delaware-museum; find updates on Time and the Valleys Museum events at timeandthevalleysmuseum.org.