Tusten Historical Society

198 Bridge Street  PO Box 18  Narrowsburg, NY  12764

Are Your Roots in Tusten?

Updated June 30, 2001

“From 1743 to 1798, Tusten was a part of Mamakating  from 1798 to 1853, Tusten was a part of the town of Lumberland, on 17 December 1853 Tusten township was formed from Lumberland” quote from Quinlan’s History of Sullivan County 1873.

There has not been much printed information on Tusten. Much of what has been written, is credited to the late Mr. Arthur N,. Meyers, local historian and newspaper editor.

Resources you can find in the Tusten Historical Society

• Microfilm — We have the Federal Census Records on microfilm from 1790 up to, and now including the 1930 Census rolls. For your information,  census from 1790 thru 1850, show Tusten residents before Tusten was formed in 1853. (note: all of the census rolls include ALL Sullivan County townships, thus allowing researchers to peruse the census records of all 15 townships at our society here. The only indexed townships thus far, are Cochecton, Highland, Lumberland and Tusten)
  
  On micro-fiche, we have the Civil War Veterans listed from the 1890 Special Census. This includes all of New York State, plus we have the same for the state of  Pennsylvania.

• Lutheran Church records 1868 – 1901
• Methodist Records 1859 – 1925
• Delaware News-Times 1929 – 1969

Extracted records from various sources:

• Tusten Vital Statistics :
• Births 1883 – 1925
• Deaths 1884 – 1949
• Marriages 1884 – 1949

New York State Census for Tusten:

• 1855
• 1865
• 1875
• 1892
• 1915
• 1925

Tusten Cemetery inscriptions :

• Beaver Brook
• Glen Cove
• Lava
• St. Francis
• Tusten
• 2 private cemeteries

• Marriage records for Tusten persons, extracted from Wayne Co., PA Prothonatory Office in Honesdale for Tusten persons from 1885 –1946

• Tusten Burial Permits for persons who died elsewhere and are buried in Tusten cemeteries 1933 – 1966
• Rasmussen Burials from 1904 – 1929

Wills and deeds from 1800’s to early 1900

• Some originals, some extracted from Surrogates Court in Monticello, New York

Obituaries

We now have over 15,000 obituaries from area newspapers from the 1880's to present, on the computer, indexed and available for viewing.  This was an eight-year project, now completed, being continually updated.

Recent additions to our shelves: Two binders of local history gleaned from newspapers; a binder of 256 pages of wedding announcements extracted from newspapers, indexed and cross referenced; a binder with collected photo’s of past residents (we still seek more past residents of our town.)

We have access to the private genealogy files of a local genealogist, who may be able to put you in touch with others researching the same ancestors. These files contain the genealogy requests and replies, requested over a period of the past thirty years. For this service, call for an appointment.

The Tusten and Cochecton residents (only) who have wills at the Surrogates Court, in Monticello (our County seat) have been extracted from the Index Ledgers, showing the name, residence and file case numbers where a researcher can find the original will.

Newspaper Articles

We also have extracted newspaper articles on the early history of the area, most of which came from the Delaware Valley News-Times published in Narrowsburg.

Recently we acquired local news items extracted from the Sullivan County Record, published in Jeffersonville, NY . The columns were called “Along the Delaware”. These run from late 1870’s to 1929. Then from 1929 we have the newspapers on microfilm to 1969.

These local columns give a look into the way things were in the past, telling of births, deaths, the transfer of businesses and much more on the daily lives of our ancestors.