Montgomery Town Supervisor Brian Maher appointed Village of Walden resident Mary Ellen Matise town historian at the board meeting on March 5.

Matise previously served as Walden Village Historian from 2010 through 2019. Maher appointed her village historian during his tenure as Walden mayor. She currently serves as chair of the Town of Montgomery Historic Preservation Commission (HPC), which works to enhance and protect the Town’s heritage.

“Mary Ellen Matise has had just an unbelievable history in terms of serving our town and the Village of Walden also specifically...,” Maher said. “She’s a hard worker. Anyone who knows her knows how diligent she is.”

As town historian, Matise plans to follow the many guidelines mandated by the state. Much of her efforts would go towards preserving the town’s history. Matise will review and verify the Town’s recorded history.

“It’s very easy now because a lot of information is on the internet,” Matise said. “With FamilySearch and with Ancestry… A lot of that is much easier to verify now than it was even 10 years ago.”

Matise wanted this position because she is curious about the town she has called home since 1982.

“I want to know how did we get to this point…,” she said. “I wanna know how and why. And that’s what history is all about. It plays into our future because once you see how an area developed and why it developed that way, is it a direction that you still go in or what kind of changes would you make?”

Matise is fascinated by each of the town’s villages, which are well-defined communities. She will collaborate with the other village historians to preserve their history as well.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Matise has been researching mastodon sites that contributed to Charles Wilson Peale’s mastodon, which has been on display at Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt in Germany since 1847. About 60 percent of the mastodon’s remains came from Montgomery, Crawford and Shawangunk. The remaining 40 percent of the skeleton is composed of fake bones, which Peale inserted to create a complete skeleton.

Recently the skeleton was loaned to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. It was part of an exhibition that was scheduled to be on view from March 20 to August 16. Visitors have not been able to see the exhibition, as the museum has been closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The woman from the Smithsonian who obtained the skeleton hopes to visit Montgomery, Crawford and Shawangunk this summer to see where the bones originally came from.

“Once we get those sites, it’ll be fun because we’ll have Town of Shawangunk, Town of Crawford, Town of Montgomery and we can all do something about the mastodon together,” Matise said.

One of the sites was on the farm of John Masten on Plains Road in the hamlet of Wallkill. More remains were found across the street from Valley Central High School and at Peter Millspaugh’s farm on 17K, roughly two miles past Winding Hills Park.

“I’m trying to pinpoint the exact swamp,” Matise said regarding the location of the mastodon remains in Crawford.