Explore The Peekskill Museum

Our currently featured new front room public exhibits reveal Peekskill’s history in its timely progression.

Starting with the former resident Kitchawank people, to contact with New Amsterdam resident Jan Peeck, and the written “Ryck’s Patent” agreement between native people and European settlers in 1684, various Kitchawank original artifacts are part of this exhibit.

The dramatic and devastating raid at Peekskill by British naval and infantry forces in March 1777 is given due attention with various artifacts and maps.

The adjoining room in the 1878 house focuses on the original Dwight and Sarah Herrick five family members.  There is a speculation that when Mr. Herrick was an instructor at the former Peekskill Military Academy from 1867 to 1870, that one of his students was a young cadet L. Frank Baum, who later in life authored the popular WIZARD OF OZ stories.

The house also deserves attention as one of the few domestic structures designed by architect William Rutherford Mead. The firm of McKim, Mead and White was America’s premiere architectural company during the later 1800s.

While artifacts and imagery are distributed throughout the Herrick House,

the Peekskill Museum has a number of permanent collections, which include:

The iron industry was key to Peekskill’s early development with 8 foundries producing 200,000 stoves a year at its peak. Come explore our collection of stoves, artifacts and photographs of the foundries and their workers.

Explore the growth of Peekskill though the largest collection of Peekskill-related maps in the area.

This room contains a variety of objects and curiosities relating to the life of children over the years in Peekskill, from a 1939 Soapbox Derby racer and Velocipede, to the Museum’s infamous giant ball of string.

A reconstruction of what Mrs. Herrick’s bedroom may have looked like, this room gives visitors a glimpse into home life when the Herrick’s occupied this house.

The core of the Peekskill Museum collection is its wealth of historic photographs, glass plate negatives and the Evening Star negative collection. Many of these photographic images can be seen on the walls and halls of the Museum