Minisink Trail Project Announced
BARRYVILLE — On November 13, 2012, the non-profit history education group, The Delaware Company of NY was officially incorporated. Originally formed by a small group of men and women dedicated to promoting and supporting the history and historic landmarks of the Upper Delaware River Valley and beyond, The Delaware Company has been actively doing just that for the past decade.
The group is marking its tenth anniversary by announcing its latest project, intended to enhance the visitor experience at the Sullivan County-owned Minisink Battleground Park in Barryville.
For many years, visitors to the Minisink Battleground could walk the trails there with the guidance of numbered markers along the way and brochures that contained a key explaining the significance of those markers. For more than a decade now, the brochures have been lost, and people walking the trails are left to wonder exactly what the numbered markers are supposed to denote.
The Delaware Company’s Minisink Trail Project will remedy that situation.
The project has actually been years in the making according to Debra Conway, the Executive Director of The Delaware Company, whose vision it was to reinstate the marker and brochure system. Without the original brochures, which contained the key to the markers, it was slow going, she says.
Enter Ruth Huggler of Youngsville, an avid history buff and member of the Sullivan County Historical Society Board of Directors, who this fall presented The Delaware Company with copies of the three original brochures that provide the legend for the numbered markers on three different trails at the Battleground.
“I was intent on finding copies of the guides ever since I heard over a year ago they were missing,” Ms. Huggler said. “I did a thorough search through the Historical Society’s files, without success. But I like a challenge, and I was finally able to locate them.”
The new project, to be undertaken beginning this winter in collaboration with the County’s Office of Parks, Recreation and Beautification, will involve the repair, reinstatement and modernizing of the markers and the updating and reprinting of the brochures.
“We are very excited to undertake this extremely worthwhile project,” Ms. Conway said. “We are confident that once the Minisink Trail Project is completed, it will significantly enhance the visitor experience at the Battleground.”
The Minisink Trail Project is made possible by a grant from the Tianaderrah Foundation and by private donations. For more information about The Delaware Company and its projects, visit its website, thedelawarecompany.org.