09/02/2026
This Labor Day Weekend:
We remember some of the Hat Factories that Made Beacon
“The Hat Capital of New York State"
Hat Fit for a Giant Made at Local Hat Shop
The Dutchess Hat Works factory, located on lower Main Street in Fishkill Landing, was once the largest hat-making concern in town. During the busy season, which in the late nineteenth century ran from about the beginning of July to mid-November, Dutchess Hat produced 600 to 700 dozen hats a day-nearly a million, all told, of a style of ladies' hats called "jockies'; for the fall and winter fashions.
But in the month of April 1899, while still gearing up for the summer rush yet to come, hat shop workers at the factory were all agog over the design and production of several "monster" hats then taking place. These huge hats were a special order from a Chicago store and were said to be going to one of the lodges of that city. The hats were made of wool, 18 inches high with a six-inch brim--by far the largest ever made at the Dutchess Hat Works. The Fishkill Standard newspaper thought so highly of the craftsmanship gone into making them that the paper named the workmen who created the hats: Fred A. Jones, Nelson Gesner, Edward O'Keefe, John W. Pearl, D. Ga***rd Murphy and Nelson Edmond.
Photo Caption: Dutchess Hat Shop worker holding oversized novelty hat made at that factory. In 1899, Dutchess Hat manufactured over a million ladies' hats, but only three of this giant size.
COPYRIGHT
Beacon Historical Society Newsletter April 2005
By Robert J. Murphy
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