‘Hidden Treasure’ Yorktown Museum Celebrates 50th Anniversary
By Ryan Canon
A new set of antique postcards was on display as the Yorktown Museum celebrated its 50th anniversary on Saturday.
The Yorktown Museum was first created in 1966 under the direction of Katherine Lowery, the first Town of Yorktown Historian. The museum was originally located in the nearby Davenport House before being moved to the Yorktown Community Cultural Center in 1976.
The Yorktown Museum features five permanent exhibit rooms that highlight the history of Yorktown, as well as a library and a genealogical research room. The museum is currently run by two-part time staff members, Adele Hobby and Nancy Augustowski.
There are eight rooms that make up the museum: the Woodlands room, which demonstrates precolonial Native American life; the Arthur C. Lee room, which contains artifacts and examples of historical farming life; the Bob McKeand room, which features a recreation of the Yorktown Depot area in the 1950s; the Marjorie Johnson room, which holds a collection of Victorian era miniature houses; the Sylia Thorne rooms, which are two rooms that are a recreation of a 1750s era house; and the Doris and Cortland Auser Research Room, which is used for historical and genealogical research.
Hobby, who has worked at the museum since the early 1990s, calls the museum “Yorktown’s hidden treasure,” She spoke about the symbiotic relationship between the museum and the Yorktown community, such as how preschools use the museum to teach children about the town, and how during the holidays the museum remodels itself to accommodate the children.
“This museum is a wealth of knowledge. Normally, around the holidays, we try to incorporate some of the old toys into the exhibits so that children can walk through here and see different things and experience what it was like,” Hobby said. “There were no iPhones, no computers, no Gameboy, not even a telephone, but they made it work.”
The postcard exhibit that was currently on display was donated by the Taconic Postcard Club. Many of the historical items and documents hosted by the museum are donated by members of the local community.
“The people of Yorktown have been more than generous with what they have donated to us,” Hobby said.
Augustowski, who has been involved with the museum for at least 45 years, has seen the museum develop throughout most of its existence.
“We moved from up the street in a house to here in 1976, and each year we’ve added some rooms and some of the permanent displays that are out there. Eventually we had so much stuff that we figured we should start rotating some displays in and out, which are the displays located in the hallway,” she said.
In addition to the exhibits, the museum stores all of the towns records, and they keep an extensive database of genealogical files.
“We keep a history of the town, we have genealogical files,” Augustowski said. “We have a lot of people who write in about their relatives, so we look them up and send them their information.”
Augustowski made note of their small staff, and that despite youth involvement in the form of volunteering and interning, they still find themselves short on manpower.
“It’s just not like it used to be; now nobody is really free to dedicate the time to coming in to work here,” Augustowski said. “Everybody else left but Adele and I, so we split the time.”
The museum is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Yorktown Community and Cultural Center on Commerce Street, and Saturdays from 1 to 4 p.m.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
