The Westchester County Historical Society

One of the oldest historical societies in the United States, the Westchester County Historical Society was established in 1874 by a group of prominent Westchester men who were passionately interested in history, especially 

the history of Westchester County. In the beginning, membership was all male and by invitation only. Today, the Society’s membership includes men and women from across Westchester and from nearly every state in the union as well as Canada.

Much of the Society’s early activity consisted of gatherings where members would present historical papers they had researched. Over time, the Society amassed a substantial collection of reference and research material, and in 1925 WCHS opened its library to the public at the Westchester County Court House in White Plains. In that year it also began publishing its quarterly journal, The Westchester Historian, which it has published continuously ever since. Between 1925 and 1989 when the Society moved to its present location in the Westchester County Archives and Records Center in Elmsford, the Society was housed in a variety of locations within the county. At its current location in Elmsford, the Society shares a reading room with the Westchester County Archives so that researchers can seamlessly access both the public and the largest collection of private records of the county. In 2006 WCHS was designated the official historian for Westchester County, a title that it holds today.

WCHS holdings include books, pamphlets, ephemera, manuscripts, photographs, postcards, newspapers and scrapbooks dealing with various aspects of the county’s history. Tombstone inscription lists and microfilmed copies of church records are invaluable aids to genealogists. Serial holdings include genealogical and historical periodicals as well as all of the serials and newsletters produced by the local historical societies in Westchester County. The library also includes over 1,500 maps and several dozen atlases, including Sanborn Maps for many of the county’s cities and villages.

Over the past 20 years the Society has acquired through gift and long-term loans a number of important collections from organizations and institutions that have decided to make their holdings more accessible to the public. The Hufeland Collection has been on long-term loan to the Society since 1997. The largest collection of local history in Westchester County after that of WCHS, it was collected by Mount Vernon historian Otto Hufeland in the late 1800s through the early 20th century. In 2012 the Society received the Lyndhurst Collection from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and an extensive collection from the Wartburg Home in Mount Vernon. Recently, WCHS has also become a repository for the personal papers of several Westchester County elected officials, including a state senator, a state assemblywoman, and three county legislators.

Some of the most important additions to the WCHS collections have come courtesy of the Gannett Company, the company that owned a chain of newspapers in the county in the 20th century, including The Herald Statesman of Yonkers and The Daily Argus of Mount Vernon. Nearly 20,000 photos, over 150,000 clipping files and 1,000 rolls of microfilm from the mid-to-late 20th century are now accessible to researchers at the Society, due to the generosity of Gannett and one of its former editors, who currently serves on the WCHS board of trustees.

In 2011 the Society’s storage space more than tripled when a renovation of the Westchester County Records Center building was completed. WCHS has also embarked on a digitization project to make its catalog and photo collections more easily accessible to researchers. As a result, over 10,000 photos and 7,500 library records can now be searched through the WCHS collections database, which is located on the collections page of the Library section of its website, www.westchesterhistory.com.

The Society’s award-winning quarterly journal, The Westchester Historian, was first published as The Quarterly Bulletin of the Westchester County Historical Society in 1925. The publication contains scholarly articles relating to different aspects of Westchester’s history. Over the years WCHS has published a number of books chronicling the county’s history. Recent publications include The Guide to Genealogical Research in Westchester County, NY, by Marjorie Renino in 2003; Picturing Our Past: National Register Sites in Westchester County by Gray Williams in 2003, and The Cemeteries of Westchester County by Patrick Raftery in 2011. The Society is currently working on a general history of the county, which it plans to publish within the next few years.

The Westchester County Historical Society is located in the Westchester County Archives and Records Center, 2199 Saw Mill River Road in Elmsford, and it shares a reading room with the Westchester County Archives. Researchers can access both collections with the assistance of staff and volunteers on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 9am to 4pm. Since WCHS is a research library, the collection does not circulate. Research by staff is available for an hourly fee. For further information please visit www.westchesterhistory.com, call (914) 592-4323, or email us at info@westchesterhistory.com. 

by Raftery, Patrick 

Originally published in The Researcher, Winter 2013

© 2013 The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society

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