Putnam History Museum

Mission:

The mission of the Putnam History Museum is to collect, preserve, interpret, and present the history of Putnam County, Philipstown, the West Point Foundry, and the Hudson Highlands. Through exhibitions, programs, and events, the museum uses its collections to engage the community with the vibrant history of our region, and to foster greater understanding of the role it has played in the growth of our nation.

History:

The Putnam County Historical Society was founded in 1906 by a group of prominent Philipstown residents and chartered the next year to be the first historical society in the county. Its dedicated early members were an illustrious group of Cold Spring residents: A. Augustus Healy, Gouverneur Paulding, William Henry Haldane, Robert Floyd-Jones, and William Wood. Galvanized by the desire to collect and preserve historical and cultural materials pertaining to the Philipstown area, the Hudson Highlands, and Putnam County, while both looking back to the nineteenth century and forward into the twentieth, they initially concentrated on the assemblage of information related to many county families, the compilation of a list of local Civil War veterans, and a study of the milestones on the Putnam County segment of the New York-to-Albany Post Road. During these early years, the members met in private homes where objects collected by the society were stored, as well as in libraries where they held special programs.

In 1960, with funds from the estate of a longtime supporter and noted writer Laura Spencer Porter Pope (1907-1957), the society acquired the Foundry School building built in about 1830, enlarged in the 1860s, and used for the education of the Foundry's teenage apprentices as well as its employees' children. In 1971, a wing was added to house the society's holdings related to the West Point Foundry. Since the establishment of this museum, the society's members, many of them extraordinarily informed about the history of the Highlands and the county, have continued to dedicate their time and talents as docents, researchers, and educators.

Today, the museum is owned by a not-for-profit corporation under the oversight of the Department of Education of the State of New York. Governed by a board of trustees composed mostly of local residents accomplished mostly in business and the professions, the museum is staffed by an executive director, a curator, an education director, and administrative assistant, and a part-time computer consultant.

The purpose of the society is to collect and preserve historical and cultural materials pertaining to the Philipstown area, the West Point Foundry, and Putnam County, and make these materials available to the public. To fulfill this mission, the society maintains and administers the Foundry School Museum, archives, a library of genealogical records; provides regulated public access to its collections; and plans, develops, and presents informational and educational programs for the public.