Museum

SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM OUR TOWN HISTORIAN
WE ARE INTERESTED IN MEETING ANYONE INTERESTED IN DAY HISTORY.  WE COLLECT PERSONAL AND FAMILY STORIES, RESEARCH TOPICS, AND VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES ARE AVAILABLE AT THE MUSEUM.  FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACTJ JEAN HENNESSY, TOWN OF DAY HISTORIAN AT [email protected]

DAY MUSEUM GENERAL INFORMATION
The Town of Day Museum can open by appointment if staff  is available to accommodate.  We were open on Saturday's for the month of July and the first 3 weeks in August.  We will post the 2025 schedule next spring.

The museum has many items depicting the history of Day housed in the Former Town Hall opposite the current Town Hall at 1650 North Shore Road. The building was built in the 1930s by members of the Works Progress Administration, an agency created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal as a way to put unemployed men and women back to work. Day’s town government was active in providing relief for its residents who needed assistance during the Great Depression, offering services such as using town lands to plant beans and potatoes to help feed those in need of food, providing clothing to children and even ceasing to use some of their highway equipment so that they could employ more men to do jobs by hand.

The museum’s collection contains many items which were important to Day’s past including historic photographs, antique farming equipment, information on the building of the Conklingville Dam and information on some of the town’s prominent residents of the past.

Records
Early town records are hard to come by for the town as there was reportedly a fire in 1847 which destroyed all or most of what existed at that time. If you are looking for information on early town residents it is more beneficial to look at the county level where records such as federal and state censuses and land records are kept back to 1791, the year Saratoga County was created. Vital records were not kept in New York State until the 1880s and they are filed in two places, with the Town Clerk and with the New York State Department of Health. If you are looking for birth, death or marriage information prior to 1880 the best places to look are cemetery records, family bibles and (if they exist) church records. Estate files and wills can also be helpful and they are located in the Saratoga County Surrogate Court in Ballston Spa.

Maps
Land ownership maps can be very useful when trying to locate former land owners. The years for which these maps exist for the Town of Day are:
1856 Geil Map of Saratoga County 1866 Beers Atlas of Saratoga County 1890 Lant & Silvernail Farmer’s Atlas of Saratoga County* *this map shows only farms and includes acreage and their Post Office location.
When using these maps please keep in mind that the town changed significantly when the Great Sacandaga Lake was created in 1930 and many of the roads, cemeteries, schools, churches and houses located on these maps are currently underwater.

Genealogy
There is a limited amount of family information located in the surname files in the museum. If you would like to donate material related to Day families please contact the historian as we are eager to add to our collections. The Saratoga County Historian has comprehensive surname files as well as the Henry C. Ritchie Collection of Saratoga County Families which are great sources of information. Brookside Museum (Saratoga County Historical Society) also has surname files available. If you are looking for assistance with genealogical inquiries you may want to contact Heritage Hunters, the Saratoga County genealogical organization.

Online Resources
Land records, census records and naturalizations are available online through the Saratoga County Clerk. Follow the process for “Online Records Application”
Heritage Hunters, a local genealogical group that assists people with genealogical inquiries maintains a website with tons of very useful information including cemetery listings, information on church records and even digitized local history books: http://saratoganygenweb.com/
If you are looking for Civil War ancestors, the New York State Military Museum has put together a wonderful online database including muster rolls, newspaper articles an other information. As a side note, the deadliest battle for residents of Day in the Civil War was the Battle of Olustee, Fl. Many members of the 115th were killed or wounded there.

http://dmna.ny.gov/historic/mil-hist.htm
New York State Censuses from 1855 – 1925 can be very useful when tracking families. This information is available for free on a wonderful website called Family Search. Most of these censuses are searchable by surname.
www.familysearch.org