Department of History

Established on November 1, 1683, to secure New York’s claim to the east bank of the Hudson River, Dutchess County was named in honor of Mary of Modena, Duchess of York. Early settlements sprang up along the Hudson at Fishkill, Poughkeepsie, and Rhinebeck. Influential merchants laid claim to vast swathes of the land within Dutchess County, which were divided into patents. Immigrants from Rhineland Germany, the British Isles, and the Netherlands settled and farmed small, rented plots within these larger patents. Indigenous peoples endured alongside them.

During the Revolutionary War, Dutchess County supplied food, equipment, and recruits to sustain the fight for American Independence. Fishkill hosted the Continental Army’s supply depot for the entire northeast. After the war, economic expansion exploded, fueling the creation of a road network that still dominates the county’s landscape today. Steam-powered ships and railroads further accelerated the county’s development, introducing increasingly complicated industries while connecting Dutchess County’s farms to markets across the region.

The rise in economic prosperity fueled a growth in social and political prominence. New York’s leading families built extensive estates and great mansion houses in Dutchess, particularly during the post-Civil War era. Many of these sites remain open to the public today as federal and state parks. Dutchess County’s prominence reached a new high in 1932, when voters elected Hyde Park native Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president of the United States. In addition to leading the country through the Great Depression and World War Two, FDR created the first presidential library, still open to the public today adjacent to his home in Hyde Park.

Following World War II, Dutchess County continued to thrive as place of innovation and crossroads of America. IBM created a new headquarters in Poughkeepsie in 1942, which expanded to embrace sites in East Fishkill and Kingston in Ulster County that made Dutchess County a center for the computing and digital revolutions. Luminaries from NY Governor and 1944 presidential candidate Thomas Dewey to pioneering radio broadcaster Lowell Thomas called Dutchess County home. The growth in population led to the creation of a new form of charter government in 1967, which created the Department of History.

Today the Department of History works to preserve, study, and promote the stories from Dutchess County’s past, coordinate the Dutchess County Historical Community, and support other government offices and partner organizations in the continuing development of our county. Below you will find links to our archival access projects, a program calendar, local history directory, and exhibit resources for expanding your exploration of Dutchess County History.

We are happy to field inquiries from the general public, providing information and connecting individuals to specialists in the field.