The Peekskill Freight Depot, sometimes called the Lincoln Depot, is located at 41 South Water Street in

Peekskill, New York Peekskill is a city in northwestern Westchester County, New York, United States, north of New York City. Established as a village in 1816, it was incorporated as a city in 1940. It lies on a bay along the east side of the Hudson River, across fr ...

. It is a brick building erected in the late 19th century.

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

gave a speech at this site during his train ride to Washington after being elected, his only public appearance in

Westchester County Westchester County is a county located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of New York, bordering the Long Island Sound and the Byram River to its east and the Hudson River on its west. The county is the seventh most populous cou ...

. No longer in use as a depot, the building is the only intact freight-only station building along the route of the former

Hudson River Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

. In 2004, the station was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

, and in 2014 it was converted into the Lincoln Depot Museum.

Building

The depot building is closer to the tracks and their chainlink fencing than it is to Water Street. Across the tracks is a park which lies along the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

. The neighborhood is primarily commercial, with other old industrial buildings. It is a one-story masonry structure faced in common-bond brick with a shallow- pitched

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d roof. The roof

eave The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural sty ...

extends over the elevated platform to shelter handlers while loading and unloading freight. It is supported by

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...

and has

decorative Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes them pleasure, pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, art and taste are the main subjects of aesthetics, one of the fie ...

vergeboard A bargeboard or rake fascia is a board fastened to each projecting gable of a roof to give it strength and protection, and to conceal the otherwise exposed end grain of the horizontal timbers or purlins of the roof. The word ''bargeboard'' is pr ...

s at the north and south gable ends. The brick itself has segmented

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s between the

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

and some

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...

ing. Before its conversion into a museum, the interior of the building retained much of its original trim, including the cement floor,

wainscoting Panelling (or paneling in the United States) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity t ...

, exposed trusswork ceiling and reed molding and

bullseye Bullseye or Bull's Eye may refer to: Symbols * ◎ (Unicode U+25CE BULLSEYE), in the Geometric Shapes Unicode block * (Unicode U+0298 LATIN LETTER BILABIAL CLICK), the phonetic symbol for bilabial click Animals and plants * Bull's Eye, '' Eury ...

corner blocks around the doors.

History

The first depot was built of wood around 1850 by the

to handle

freight In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in ...

shipments into and out of what was then a busy industrial

city.Lincoln Society of Peekskill; 2007
Lincoln Depot Museum
retrieved June 17, 2007.) Around 1890 the present brick depot was built by the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected New York metropolitan area, gr ...

; at that time its platform had extensions to the north and south along the tracks. There are some reports of

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a fuel in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. Flames, the most visible portion of the fire, are produced in the combustion re ...

s in the 1880s and again in 1898; and blistering of the interior paint at roof level gives evidence that there was one. On February 19, 1861,

stopped here during his train trip to his inauguration and gave a 138-word speech at the invitation of local

congressman A member of congress (MOC), also known as a congressman or congresswoman, is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The t ...

William Nelson, who introduced him. Contemporary newspaper accounts suggest that approximately 1,000 people were present, equivalent to about a third the population of Peekskill at that time, to hear his brief request for their support in the coming crisis – four states had already

seceded Secession is the formal withdrawal of a group from a political entity. The process begins once a group proclaims an act of secession (such as a declaration of independence). A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal is the c ...

from the Union by then. It was Lincoln's only recorded appearance in Westchester County. Lincoln Depot Museum Peekskill Freight depot from north

Peekskill has embraced Lincoln's appearance as a celebrated part of its history. A memorial stone, the Lincoln Exedra, was erected on South Street, overlooking the depot, in 1925. The speech was commemorated at its 50th anniversary in 1911, and again on its

centennial A centennial, or centenary in British English, is a 100th anniversary or otherwise relates to a century. Notable events Notable centennial events at a national or world-level include: * Centennial Exhibition, 1876, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ...

in 1961. The latter occasion featured a re-enactment of the speech, with

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

s dressed as Lincoln and Nelson. The Lincoln Society of Peekskill keeps the memory alive and organizes other activities related to its namesake. The railroad no longer exists, and the building fell vacant as Peekskill's industrial base declined to the point that freight shipments were no longer made; the line itself is now the

Metro-North The Metro-North Commuter Railroad Company , also branded as MTA Metro-North Railroad and commonly called simply Metro-North, is a suburban commuter rail service operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a public authority of ...

Hudson Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudson Rodrigues dos Santos, Brazilian f ...

commuter line, handling almost exclusively passenger traffic.

Lincoln Depot Museum

In April 2005, then

New York State Governor The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has ...

George Pataki George Elmer Pataki (; born June 24, 1945) is an American politician who served as the 53rd governor of New York from 1995 to 2006. He previously served in the State Legislature from 1985 to 1994, and as the mayor of Peekskill from 1981 to 1984 ...

– the former mayor of Peekskill – secured the initial funding for the Lincoln Depot Museum to be housed in the freight depot building. Groundbreaking for the project took place on February 9, 2011, by which time the Lincoln Depot Foundation had secured approximately $3 million. The building';s restoration was completed in May 2013, with help from New York's Office of Historic Preservation. The museum opened to the public on October 18, 2014.

References

External links

Lincoln Society in Peekskill
{{National Register of Historic Places in New York Railway stations in the United States opened in 1850 Railway stations in the United States opened in 1890 Former railway stations in New York (state) Former New York Central Railroad stations Abraham Lincoln Buildings and structures in Peekskill, New York Railway freight houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Railway stations in Westchester County, New York National Register of Historic Places in Westchester County, New York Repurposed railway stations in the United States

Building

History

Lincoln Depot Museum

See also

References

External links