The County Clerk’s Historical Resources page hosts a variety of archival material chronicling Dutchess County History. The resources presented here contain high-resolution scans of fragile, original, material from the Dutchess County Archives. These documents detail the operations and impact of Dutchess County government from its founding in the early eighteenth century onward. As our scanning initiatives continue, we are committed to growing this invaluable collection of material for the public.
Prior to the adoption of the Dutchess County Charter of 1967, the Board of Supervisors was the primary elected assembly governing the county. Initially consisting of the supervisor of each colonial precinct and then each town after the statewide reorganization of 1788, this board met annually at the county courthouse in Poughkeepsie to review charges against the county’s accounts. Over time, the meetings of the Board of Supervisors increased in frequency and the membership of the board increased to keep pace with the growing numbers of communities in Dutchess County.
The volumes below are the original manuscript minute books of the Board of Supervisors from the early eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth century. During the Civil War era, the Board of Supervisors began publicly publishing their minutes annually. Copies of these published minutes are available for review at the Local History Room in the Adriance Branch Library of the Poughkeepsie Public Library District. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Vassar Brothers Institute published transcripts of the first three Books of Supervisors. The scans below are all taken from the original manuscript copies in the Dutchess County Archives.
Board of Supervisors, Book B (1722-1747)
Board of Supervisors, Book E (1753-1757)
The Dutchess County Department of Planning and the Dutchess County Department of History produced several print publications from the 1960s through the 1980s that are still relevant today. Click on the links below to access digitized copies.
Portraits of Dutchess (1680-1807)
Additional Resources
Each application will have detailed instructions on how to use that specific resource.
In general...Choose an application from the list presented on this page. Click on a link in your search results to display the complete document. (Documents will be formatted as .pdfs)
You can scroll through, magnify and demagnify, and set the file to your viewing needs. Due to limitations in optical character recognition technology however, these scans are not word searchable at present.
