Many items of furniture, artifacts, artwork and historic information on paper in the Museum's collection were damaged during Hurricane Irene. Now comes the hard task of deciding what can be restored and raising funds for those items. The Museum Board of Directors has decided to reach out to you, the public, to help us make those decisions by making an appeal to you for donations based on individual items that were most important to our collections.
The photo you see here is Zadock Pratt's desk. We can't help but think that he may have sat at this desk while penning legislation that dealt with the creation of the Washington Monument or formation of the Smithsonian or the Transcontinental Railroad. We expect to have a conservator's estimate to restore the desk shortly. We will put that amount up on the web as soon as we have it and hope that those of you out there who love American history will help us to restore it. Thank you.
View the Damage Hurricane Irene did to the Pratt Museum here.
Please help the Zadock Pratt Museum!
News: Read about our struggle in the Wall Street Journal - 9-3-11
Our Mission
The Zadock Pratt Museum is dedicated to exhibiting the history and culture of the Northern Catskill Region from the 17th century to the present, with particular interest in the period during Prattsville Town Founder Zadock Pratt’s lifetime, 1790-1871 and the mid-19th century, the heyday of the hemlock based tanning industry in the early-to-mid 19th century, which is best illustrated by reference to the life of Zadock Pratt, the region’s most prominent tanner.
The Museum strives not only to preserve the historic Pratt Homestead and its collections, but also to interpret the above-referenced period of history and to attract to the Museum, through diversified programs, all age and interest levels, using the Historic House Landmark as a backdrop of many educational and cultural programs, events, and exhibits.
The story of the Zadock Pratt Museum is the story of early America from the arrival of Lieut. William Pratt to the shores of Massachusetts in 1632 with Puritan preacher Thomas Hooker to the establishment
of the largest tannery in the world by Colonel Zadock Pratt in the wilderness town of Prattsville, NY with the stories of the War of Independence, Civil War, Transcontinental Railroad, Washington
Monument and Smithsonian Institution as part of the story as well. A huge American story; an important early American family.
Zadock Pratt Museum
518-299-3395
email: prattmuseum@hotmail.com
PO Box 333,
Main Street,
Prattsville, NY 12468
