Exhibit showcases industrial past
A century before the villages of Fishkill Landing and Matteawan merged in 1913 to become Beacon, the British blockade of major seaports during the War of 1812 cut off the supply of imported cotton cloth to the U.S.
Merchants responded by opening textile mills, and the ones that began sprouting up along Fishkill Creek inaugurated Beacon’s Industrial Age, according to the Beacon Historical Society (BHS).
The city’s manufacturing past is chronicled in a new BHS exhibit highlighting over two dozen companies whose products ranged from bricks, carriages and hats to lawnmowers, tools and leather flying jackets made for the U.S. Air Force during World War II.
Those brickyards and factories employed thousands, including immigrants from Eastern Europe, women who filled manufacturing jobs during World War II and Blacks who joined the Great Migration north from the late 1910s to 1970.
They found work at places like the Matteawan Manufacturing Co., one of the hat-making factories that rose along Fishkill Creek; W.H. Jackson Carriage & Sleigh Manufacturer; and the New York Rubber Co., which made balls and toys and then rafts for the U.S. military during World War II (including one used by a future president, George H.W. Bush, when his plane was shot down in 1944).
Diane Murphy, whose late brother, Robert Murphy, was a longtime Beacon historian and BHS president, curated the exhibit. The opening on March 23 drew a large crowd, said Diane Lapis, director of special projects.
“A lot of people came to see where their parents worked,” she said. “And there were a number who moved here in the last year and said: ‘I didn’t know this. This is really fascinating.’ ”
The Beacon Historical Society is located at 61 Leonard St. Made in Beacon is open Thursdays from 10 a.m. to noon and Saturdays from 1 to 3 p.m. through August. See beaconhistorical.org.
