After the Village of Middleburgh was incorporated by residents via public referendum on April 16, 1881, one of the new municipality’s first tasks was to elect a Village Board to govern and lead the community. Five weeks later on May 23, 1881, William Engle was elected the first President of Middleburgh with 75 votes; he was unopposed.
Yes, you read that correctly: Middleburgh used to elect Village Presidents and not Mayors. This remained true until 1928 when the title abruptly changed. According to the Village Minutes from this time period, there were no formal motions nor referendums – William H. Bevins was referred to as President one note and then Mayor the next.
Between 1881-1929 Village Elections were held annually, as there are many Presidents who served one year in office and moved on. With the change to Mayor came also the extension of terms to two years, which remained in place until 1987 when four-year terms were introduced. The Board also grew in 1929 from three to five members.
In addition to establishing the new title for his office and overseeing the start of two-year terms, Bevins also has the distinction of being the only Middleburgh Mayor to die in office and he served the longest consecutive tenure of ten years and nine months. William E. Throne holds the longest nonconsecutive tenure of eleven years.
Appointed to replace Bevins, George Duncan served three months in office as Acting Mayor in 1939. He would be the only appointed Mayor until 2020 when Trish Bergan was tapped to fill out the remainder of Matthew Avitabile’s COVID-19 extended term. Bergan was the second female Mayor; Theresa Youmans was the first, elected in 1975.
Since the Village’s incorporation, there have been thirty-six occupants in the Presidential/Mayoral Office and forty distinct tenures (Lyman Driesbach, for example, was elected President/Mayor on three separate occasions from 1920-1923, 1924-1927, and 1939-1943).
The complete list of Middleburgh Presidents and Mayors is available below and was compiled by current Mayor Timothy Knight. .
