Middletown
Middletown names 4 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Middletown a city in Orange co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city in Orange co., N. Y., on the Wallkill river, and on the Erie, New York, Ontario and Western, and the Middletown and Unionville railroads; 66 miles N. W. of New York City. There are a Union School, Middletown Academy, the Thrall Public Hospital, the State Asylum for the Insane, waterworks, public library, National banks, and several daily and weekly newspapers. The city is the center of a large country trade in live-stock and garden produce. Here are located the machine shops of the New York, Ontario and Western railroad, and there are manufactories of woolen hats, wood type, shirts, blankets, files, saws, sheet steel, condensed milk, etc. Middletown was chartered as a city in 1888, up to which year it was a part of Wallkill township. It was important in the early history of New York as a half-way station on the old Minisink road, which ran from the Hudson to the Delaware river, and was much used by emigrants on their way to western New York. Pop. (1910) 15,313, (1920) 18,420.
Middletown a city and countyseat of Middlesex co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city and countyseat of Middlesex co., Conn., on the Connecticut river, and the New York, New Haven, and Hartford railroad; 15 miles S. of Hartford. It is the seat of WES- LEYAN UNIVERSITY (q. v.), the State Industrial School for Girls, the Berkeley Divinity School, and a State Insane Asylum; contains the county court house, National and savings banks, and the Russell Public Library; and has electric light and street railroad plants, improved waterworks, and manufactories of ship hardware, elastic webbing, rubber goods, pumps, hammocks, sewing machines, etc. Middletown was incorporated in September, 1651. Pop. (1910) 11,851; (1920) 13,638.
Middletown a city in Butler co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city in Butler co., O.; on the Miami river, the Miami and Erie canal, and the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis, the Cincinnati Northern and other railroads; 34 miles N. of Cincinnati. Here are waterworks on the Holly system, and electric street railroad, electric lights, National and private banks, and several daily and weekly newspapers. The city has manufactories of paper, tobacco, bicycles, motor cycles, gas engines, and agricultural implements. Pop. (1910) 13,152; (1920) 23,594.
Middletown a borough in Dauphin co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a borough in Dauphin co., Pa.; on the Susquehanna river, and on the Philadelphia and Reading, and the Pennsylvania railroads; 10 miles S- E. of Harrisburg. It contains the Emaus Orphan Home, waterworks, a high school, National banks, daily and weekly newspapers, and an electric road connecting it with Harrisburg. It is located in an agricultural and lumbering region, and has extensive iron works, planing mills and sash factory, car works, tannery, a furniture factory, etc. Pop. (1910) 5,374; (1920) 5,920.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The largest change since Collier's wrote in 1921 fell on the Pennsylvania borough: the Three Mile Island nuclear station, on an island in the Susquehanna just downstream, suffered a partial core meltdown on 28 March 1979 and made this small Dauphin county town of some 5,900 people a world news datastop. The Ohio Middletown, then listing paper, tobacco and bicycles, grew into a steel town around the American Rolling Mill Company (Armco, later AK Steel and now Cleveland-Cliffs), and is the biggest of the four today at roughly 51,000 people; Connecticut's Middletown is close behind at about 48,000, though it is no longer meaningfully a "countyseat," since Connecticut abolished county government in 1960. Wesleyan University and the Berkeley Divinity School are still there, Berkeley having moved to New Haven and affiliated with Yale. The New York Middletown, 18,420 in 1920, has roughly 30,000 residents; the "State Asylum for the Insane" it advertised became the Middletown Psychiatric Center and the railroad shops that anchored the town are gone.
Written for this edition, 2026.