Area Research Guide

Welcome to the Putnam History Museum! We have compiled a number of resources to assist you with researching our local history. Please visit our website link to view our online collections database HERE and fill out an online research request form HERE.

Two Arcadia books from the Images of America series tell the story of Cold Spring’s history and feature a lot of images from the museum’s collection: Around Cold Spring (2011) by Trudie A. Grace, and West Point Foundry (2014) by Trudie A. Grace and Mark Forlow. Additionally, if you are looking for more information about the West Point Foundry, please see IA: the Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology, Theme Issue: West Point Foundry, (Volume 35, Numbers 1-2, 2009), edited by Steven A. Walton, Associate Professor at Michigan Tech. These books are available for purchase in our shop!

You can also email your request or questions to library@putnamhistorymuseum.org  or call (845) 265-4010 ext. 17, and someone will get back to you as soon as possible. Most of our reference assistance is provided by volunteers.

Online access to Putnam County maps and other images:

Putnam County maps are useful in house or property history research, as well as genealogy research because some of these maps were subscription-based, so people paid to have their homes listed. You can access these maps and other images, to see if the site or property you are researching is listed in the 1829/39 Burr map; 1854 O’Connor map; F. W. Beers 1867 maps of each town; 1876 Reed map; or the 1931 Putnam County Chamber of Commerce map, among others, sponsored by the Putnam County Historian’s Office: https://www.hrvh.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/pchc

Digital local newspaper archives:

Have a look in our digital local newspaper archives for local press coverage of the property or site (the runs of these newspapers are not always complete, so there may be missing issues):

Brewster Standard (1870-1982) HERE.

Putnam County Courier (1852-1930) HERE.

Patterson Weekly (1901-mid-1917) HERE.

House/Property history research:

If you are conducting house/property research, you can also see the information available about a property at Putnam County’s Real Property site here. There are various tabs for improvements etc., though these dates were attributed when that office was created in the mid-1960s and accuracy varies: http://putnam.sdgnys.com/search.aspx?advanced=true

Find out if a chain of title search was done for the property at the time of sale, or go to the Putnam County Clerk’s office, 40 Gleneida Avenue, Carmel, NY, to do this research. Start with your current ownership and work backwards, through buyers and sellers, historically. Just down the hall from the County Clerk’s Office is the Real Property Office, and they can also assist with property searches.

Histories of Putnam County, NY:

William J. Blake, Esq. 1849 history.

William S. Pelletreau’s 1886 history.

Willitt C. Jewell’s essay in Southeastern New York:  A History of the Counties of Ulster, Dutchess, Orange, Rockland and Putnam, Vol. 2. Compiled and edited by Louise Hasbrouck Zimm, Joseph W. Emsley, Rev. A. Elwood Corning, and Willitt C. Jewell. NY: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, Inc., 1946.