Peekskill

Peekskill, a village of Westchester county, New York, U.S.A., on the E. bank of the Hudson rivers about 41 m. N. of New York City. Pop. (1910, census), 1.5,245. It is served by the New York Central & Hudson River railway, and by passenger and freight steamboat lines on the Hudson river. The village is the home of many New York business men. At Peekskill are the Peekskill military academy (1833, nonsectarian); St Mary's school, Mount St Gabriel (Protestant Episcopal), a school for girls established by the sisterhood of St Mary; the Field memorial library; St Joseph's home (Roman Catholic); the Peekskill hospital, and several sanatoria. Near the village is the state military camp, where the national guard of the state meets in annual encampment. Peekskill has many manufactures, and the factory products were valued in 1905 at $7,251,897, an increase of 306.7 % since 1900. The site was settled early in the 18th century, but the village itself dates from about 1760, when it took its present name from the adjacent creek or "kill," on which a Dutch trader, Jans Peek, of New York City, had established a trading post. During the latter part of the War of Independence Peekskill was an important outpost of the Continental Army, and in the neighbourhood several small engagements were fought between American and British scouting parties. The village was incorporated in 1816. Peekskill was the country home of Henry Ward Beecher.