Grinnell Library Mission Statement
The mission of the Grinnell Library is to provide free access to a variety of informational materials, library services, and programs using its resources and those of the Mid-Hudson Library System, to meet the educational, cultural, and recreational needs of the community.
Microfilm Archive Collections:
Grinnell Library owns microfilm of several local newspapers; please ask at the Circulation Desk for the rolls you wish to view.
Local Newspapers:
Poughkeepsie Journal:
January 1986 – March 1987
May 1987 – June 1987
January 1990 – October 2001
December 2001
Southern Dutchess News:
Assorted issues from 1956, 1957, August 1957 – December 2011
Older Local Newspapers:
Wappingers Chronicle:
June 1910 – September 1928
February 1935 – June 1938
Wappingers Herald:
September 1928 – June 1936
Wappingers Falls Shopper:
November 1953 – August 1958
Wappingers Post:
February 1939 – November 1939
Local History Collection
Grinnell Library’s Local History Collection includes historic texts and pictorial works. This collection is for in library use only.
Special Collections
Grinnell Library’s Special Collection is available for researchers to view by appointment only. Click here for a listing of what is currently cataloged. Please also take a look at our Policy.
The Bird Display, donated by Martense Cornell, has been in the Library since at least 1923. The birds are all local species, and at least one, the passenger pigeon, is now extinct!
John R. Ferris Civil War Collection
In 1947, John R. Ferris (1929-1988) was given his great-grandfather’s Civil War discharge papers. This acquisition triggered his interest in Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, and led to the formation of his book collection, which he donated to the Grinnell Library in 1977. It is available for in-house use at the Grinnell Library.
Clinton Wilde Clapp was born in Wappingers Falls in 1831. He had a technical education– today he would be an engineer. As a Sunday School teacher, he was noted for his “chalk talks” and when he retired in the 1880s he took up painting. Clinton Clapp created at least ten paintings of local scenes between the years 1883 and 1884, six of which are housed at Grinnell Library.