Memories of Liberty, Volume II

We're pleased to announce that the Memories of Liberty, Volume II CD-ROM is now available.  for ordering information.

The Town of Liberty recently celebrated its Bicentennial, but here is a new CD-ROM with pictures and other material about Liberty's Centennial -- more than a hundred years ago!

Here's what you will find in the Memories of Liberty, Volume II CD-ROM. 

• The Centennial Booklet for the Town of Liberty.  This book of about 45 pages was loaned to us by Denny Birmingham, and provides much information about the years between the publication of Quinlan's History of Sullivan County and Child's Gazetteer of Sullivan County, both in the early 1870s, and 1907.  We've indexed this book, and you can examine the new index on this site.  to view it.
• The Life of a Plodder -- Fred Gorton's 95 years.  This is an extraordinary account of a long-time Liberty resident's life, told in his own words,  and compiled from his memoirs and diaries by his granddaughter, Kathy Lynn Gorton Emerson.  Please note that The Life of a Plodder is ©1980 Kathy Lynn Gorton Emerson; revisions © 2005 Kathy Lynn Gorton Emerson, and appears on this CD-ROM with her permission.  We are very grateful to be able to include this document of the history of Liberty, and we recommend that you visit the compiler's website, www.kathylynnemerson.com.

• The History of the Liberty Fire Department.  This book, of 78 pages, was published in August 1970 in conjunction with the centennial of the village of Liberty.  (There's something you may not have known -- while the Town of Liberty dates from 1809, the Village of Liberty dates only from 1870).  This volume contains some fairly recent information, including an authoritative write-up of the Grossinger file of 1954, and the book credits Dewey Borden for having compiled the data for it.   to see a list of the known fire chiefs of the Liberty Fire Department.  By the way, also on the CD-ROM is a copy of the Constitution and By-Laws of the J. C. Young Hose Company No. 1, in the March 2, 1928 edition.  Makes interesting reading!

• Libertas for 1942.  The yearbook of Liberty High School.  This 92 page yearbook, published during World War II, had a soft cover, no doubt to save resources for the war effort.  The pages in the original were not numbered, so an index would not be of much value.  A list of the members of this graduating class appears later on this page.  to see this list now.

• Libertas for 1952.  Another Liberty HS yearbook a decade later.  Including the photo pages inside the front and back covers, this includes only 68 pages -- but Libertas again has a hard cover.  A list of the members of this graduating class appears later on this page.  to see this list now.

• Cemetery and church records.  Did you know that a woman named Gertrude Barber spent her summers in Sullivan County "collecting cemeteries" and transcribing church records during the 1920s and 1930s?  In other words, she spent her days copying down all the gravestone inscriptions (at least the names and dates), later, back in Brooklyn, over the winter, to type them in six carbon copies.  She donated the copies to the New York Public Library (where your compiler copied them), to the New York State Historical Society, and no doubt to others as well.  Here are the Town of Liberty items that will be on this CD-ROM:

  • Inscriptions from the Swan Lake Cemetery

  • Inscriptions from the Old Fulton Cemetery, also called the Fraser Cemetery, in Ferndale

  • White Sulphur Springs Cemetery

  • Baptist Church Cemetery, in Parksville

  • Liberty Town Cemetery, also known as the Old Liberty Cemetery

  • Records of the Free Methodist Church, Ferndale

  • Records of the Baptist Church at Parksville and Liberty

  • Records of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Swan Lake, White Sulphur Springs, and Harris

We've scanned them all, and our completely new index to all of these Barber records is now available on-line for you to review.  to view it.

• Walnut Mountain Ski Area brochure.   Did you know that in 1937, Liberty was noted as a winter sports mecca?  If you believe this brochure, it was something approaching the winter sports capitol of the East.  This four page brochure is the most complete summary of what Walnut Mountain had to offer that we have seen, although it is clearly a marketing document.

• Postcards and other pictures.   These come both from our own collection and, thanks to their generosity, from the collections of many other present and former Liberty residents -- and visitors -- as well.  There are many postcards (including some real rarities) and quite a few photographs we have not seen elsewhere. Here's an interesting item:  Anyone who grew up in Liberty is familiar with "Memorial Hall" -- the sports/community outreach building of the Liberty Methodist Church.  Did you always assume that the "Memorial" part of the name referred to Civil War dead?  This compiler did.  However, in this collection, one of the postcards we're including shows conclusively that this was NOT the source of its name!

• Other stuff.  There are several maps, both topographic and otherwise, including one we're particularly fond of that was evidently intended to attract investors to the O&W railroad project before the road was hacked out of the mountains.  There's also quite a bit of other ephemera.

How to obtain Memories of Liberty, Volume II:

The CD-ROM, ISBN 0-9766342-9-5, is available from Between the Lakes Group for $15.00.  There are two convenient ways to order.  

The quickest is simply to click the "Add to shopping cart" button below.  For your convenience, we use PayPal, so you can either charge your own PayPal account (if you have one) or charge the purchase to a major credit card.  (When you're finished reviewing our other offerings, just click the "View shopping cart" button to check out.)

If you'd prefer to order the Memories of Liberty, Volume II  CD-ROM -- or any of our other CD-ROMS -- by US Mail, simply to print our convenient mail order form.

Go to the page for the original Memories of Liberty CD-ROM

Some useful lists from the Memories of Liberty, Volume II CD-ROM

Members of the class of 1942:

Members of the class of 1952

Known Chiefs of the Liberty Fire Department (1873 - 1969):

We're pleased to announce that the Memories of Liberty, Volume II CD-ROM is now available.  for ordering information.

to go to the page for the original Memories of Liberty CD-ROM, which is still available!

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