Southeast, New York: Iron, Iron Ore, and a Railroad Deal

The town of Southeast in Putnam County was incorporated by New York State in seventeen eighty-eight and remained a quiet agricultural community through the early decades of the republic, sending its goods by sloop across the county to Cold Spring on the Hudson. The railroad changed that. When the Harlem Line received its charter in eighteen thirty-one, a local builder and speculator named Walter Brewster realized the tracks would pass directly through Southeast.

In eighteen forty-eight he and his partner constructed passenger and freight stations and donated them to the railroad, ensuring the line stopped there. The village that grew up around that stop took his name. The Tilly Foster Mine, two miles west of the village, later became the largest iron mine in the area, yielding seven thousand tons of ore per month at its peak in eighteen seventy-nine.