Damascus Township As you drive north from the center of the tiny village of Galilee you pass a handsome old building with a sign "Galilee Guest House." Nearby is the Galilee Methodist Church completed in 1876. The Guest House was once the post office of the village and a general store. Originally part of the Damascus Manor. the land was owned by Webster Sutliff in 1833 and later by his brother Joseph. Joseph Sutliff was postmaster of Galilee from 1869 to 1871, and was also owner of the sawmill on Galilee Creek. His wife Delilah inherited the property and at her death passed it to her son Lemando F. Tyler. It was inherited by his wife. Emily. and later by the Tyler children, Frank. Joseph, and Annie Loy. A local resident recalls buying penny candy from Frank Tyler when he was owner of the General Store and was Postmaster. Charles and Edna Brown purchased the property in 1956 and sold to Ebenezer and Beryl Kessler. Gerard Hovagimyan purchased the property from Beryl Kessler in 1989. In the early years the front room was both store and post office, with a door leading into the family living quarters in the back and upstairs. Part of the building is post and beam construction, part is balloon framing. The old floors, interior walls, and post office shelves are intact. The tin roof and exterior siding are new. Mr. Hovagimyan restored the building with great care and attention to historic detail. G. H. Hovagimyan and his wife, Joyce Castleberry, then operated the Guest House. The charming house is surrounded by lovely gardens with old-fashioned flowers in raised beds. One feels that time has stopped a century ago, and the life of a small country village lives on as one looks out on a dirt road, a country church, and fields and woods.

From 1993 through 2008 the Honesdale National Bank published an annual wall calendar, each featured 13 historic sites. The sites were chosen and researched by a committee of the historical society and artwork was commissioned to Judy Hunt and William Amptman by the bank.

This page was one month of the calendar and was made possible through the Wayne County Commissioners and a Tourism Promotion Committee’s Tourism Grant.