The Howland Cultural Center, Beacon's current hub for all kinds of classes and events, was built initially as the Howland Circulating Library when it opened its doors for the first time in August 1872. The then library was the brain child of Civil War General Joseph Howland "and several prominent men of the area, names which are still familiar today: Brett, Mackin, Brinckerhoff, Mase, Van Buren, plus others," according to the Howland Cultural Center's website.
Howland was a son of a New York City merchant family who grew wealthy from the China trade. Howland, with his wife, Eliza Newton Woolsey, moved from New York City to their estate Tioronda, (today called Craig house). Eliza embarked on a sanitary mission to feed and care for soldiers fighting in the Civil War, which you should definitely read about here.
General Joseph Howland commissioned his brother-in-law, Richard Morris Hunt, a sought after architect, to design the library. The design was conceived in a Norwegian Tudor style with 6 gabled roofs and was one of the last libraries designed to use natural light. More description about the design is here at the Howland Cultural Center's website. After Hunt designed this building, the architect went on to design a wing of the Louvre Museum in Paris, the base of the Statue of Liberty, the renowned “Breakers” in Newport, Rhode Island, and the entrance and lobby of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and more.
The Howland Circulating Library was intended as a circulating library among a paying membership,
and its original 2,200 volumes grew quickly. In 1929, it was one
of two subscription-based libraries in the state of New York. A bequest was made by a donor,
with a condition that the library be made public, which it was. It
remained a library until 1976 when its rapidly expanding requirements
compelled a move to larger quarters.
Today the Howland Cultural Center is a center for the community, a hub for the arts, and a local historical treasure.
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