This year, the Putnam County Historian’s Office has republished Willitt C. Jewell’s Putnam County. During World War II, Jewell wrote a new history of Putnam County that appeared in 1946 only as chapters in a much larger reference work, Southeastern New York. The new book augments Jewell’s original work with an introduction, annotations, and corrections; and it is illustrated with more than 200 additional photographs, maps and archival material drawn from the Willitt C. Jewell and Dorothy G. Jewell Collections and other holdings of the County Historian, local museums, and historical societies.

Jewell’s work picks up where William S. Pelletreau left off in his 1886 History of Putnam County, New York and captures local life up and into the second World War. He covers new technology including the telephone and streetlights, history of the granges, churches, schools, banking and industry, fire departments, reservoirs, the summer-home developments of Lake Carmel, Putnam Lake and Lake Peekskill, and more. His coverage of the home front and local war effort during World War II, is an unsurpassed source. And he added the story of Sybil Ludington’s ride, a first for any published history of the County.