Chester Historical Society debuts Revolution exhibit at Erie Station Museum

Original documents, artifacts and newly interpreted research about Chester’s Revolutionary War role will go on display Sunday at the 1915 Erie Station Museum, giving Orange County residents a local stop for the region’s 250th anniversary story.

The Chester Historical Society’s exhibit, Chester in the Revolution, opens at 1 p.m. Sunday, June 7, at the museum at 19 Winkler Place in Chester. Light refreshments will be served at the opening, and the exhibit is scheduled to run through Nov. 1.

The display is designed to turn Chester’s colonial-era history into something visible and immediate for families, students and longtime residents. The society said the exhibit will explore Chester’s vital role during the American Revolution through original documents, artifacts and newly interpreted historical research. That kind of evidence gives the town’s history a sharper edge than a classroom summary: it connects names, places and events to a museum in the center of the community.

The exhibit arrives as Orange County broadens its semiquincentennial programming across the region. County commemorative activities began with the Orangetown Resolutions in 2024 and are set to continue through 2033. In February, County Executive Steve Neuhaus announced the Orange County 250 Field Guide, and Orange County Historian Johanna Porr has said the county was central and integral to the American Revolution.

That larger countywide effort fits Chester closely. Orange County’s 250 Commission says the county was a destination for military personnel transporting supplies and guarding the Hudson River from attack. In Chester, recent historical work has pointed to a Revolutionary War artillery encampment that moved from Pluckemin, New Jersey, to Chester in June 1779 and remained there until late November 1779, with limited activity in 1780. That discovery gives the town’s Revolutionary-era story a more concrete local setting and helps explain why Chester’s role is drawing fresh attention now.

Interest in that history appears to be growing. A regional Orange County’s 250th exhibit in Woodbury on April 26 drew more than 350 attendees, according to Town of Chester Historian Clifton Patrick, who said Chester Historical Society collaboration helped showcase the town’s wartime importance.

The 1915 Erie Station Museum is normally open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. starting June 7. For Chester, the new exhibit turns a broad county milestone into a place-based history lesson: not abstract commemoration, but a look at the town’s own Revolutionary roots, in its own museum, on its own main street.