The Southeast Museum offers exhibits on the history of the Town of Southeast, including the early American Circus, the Harlem Line Railroad, the Tilly Foster Mine, the Borden Milk Condensery, and the Croton Reservoir System.

In addition, the museum presents various changing exhibits, drawing on its extensive collection of antique farm and household implements, quilts, clothing and assorted Americana reflecting 19th century material culture. The museum is located on Main Street, Brewster in one of Putnam County's largest landmarked buildings, the 1896 Old Town Hall, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Press blue button for events, exhibits, programs, museum shop, and more about the Southeast Museum.

Events Include
Home & Habitats. Meet animals from the rainforest, mountains, farm, desert and ponds. Hands-on age-appropriate science education program that uses live animals.

Maple Syrup demonstrations

Sheep Shearing. Enjoy the spring ritual of sheep shearing every half hour, visit with the animals, learn about farm equipment.

Walkabout Tilly Foster Farm

Historic Reenactment at the Farm TBA (July)

Activities
Fishing
Hiking
Picnicking
Pony Rides
Winter Snowshoeing

The word is Admission to the Tilly Foster Farm Museum is free and open to the public seven days a week from 10am – 4pm. Call for more activities and events.

"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 prominent 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 Putnam County, especially the Philipstown area, and the Hudson Highlands, while both looking back to the nineteenth century and forward into the twentieth, the members 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 special programs were held.

"In 1960, with funds from the estate of a longtime supporter, the noted writer Laura Spencer Porter Pope (1907–1957), the society acquired the Foundry School building, which was 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 organization is known as The Putnam County Historical Society & Foundry School Museum (PCHS–FSM) and is owned by a not-for-profit corporation under the oversight of the Department of Education of the State of New York. PCHS-FSM is governed by a board of trustees composed mainly of local residents accomplished in business and the professions and is administered by a professional staff including, an executive director and a curator.

"The purpose of the society is to collect, preserve, and present to the public historical and cultural materials pertaining to Putnam County, especially the Philipstown area, the West Point Foundry, and the Hudson Highlands. To fulfill this mission, the society maintains and administers the Foundry School Museum and a research library. The museum organizes changing exhibitions, with accompanying catalogues, and provides educational programming for the public."

The above information is sourced from the PCHS-FSM website.

Press blue button for the Putnam Historical Society, including directions, exhibits, and more about the Putnam County Historical Society & Foundry School Museum.