About Us

The Sag Harbor Historical Society was established in 1986 and was renamed the Sag Harbor Historical Museum in 2023. The Museum was bequeathed its headquarters building by Nancy Boyd Willey in 1998. Nancy was the daughter of Annie Cooper Boyd, a prolific local artist for whom the house is named.

The earliest record of this eighteenth century house is a 1796 mortgage which shows Joseph W. and Sarah Foster living here. In 2022, however, the Museum retained a dendrochronologist to date the house using the comparative analysis of growth rings in trees. From this study, we have learned that the original “half house,” which is the current southern portion of the building, dates to 1760 – before the American Revolution.

Annie Cooper Boyd was a local artist and diarist, and is an important primary source for understanding the history of Sag Harbor. Born in 1864, she grew up next door to the Museum’s headquarters on Main Street. As a teenager and through adulthood, Annie documented the architecture and natural beauty of the Long Island’s East End with her drawings, paintings, and diary. She even painted the doors and walls of the Museum with iconic landmarks. Through her art and writings, visitors are able to envision what the village and environs looked like in the late 1800s, before photography was well-established.

Annie also had a connection to Sag Harbor’s famous whaling industry as the daughter of William Cooper, a shareholder in whaling ships and a local whaleboat builder. The building at the back of the Museum property is our interpretation of William Cooper’s whaleboat shop which stood on the neighboring property where Annie grew up. The whaleboat shop holds a small collection of period tools used in the making of whaleboats as well as general carpentry.

The preservation and maintenance of these structures is an integral part of the Museum’s mission.

About the Village

From its first recorded days in the early eighteenth century to today, Sag Harbor’s fortunes have ebbed and flowed. By the time the Revolutionary War began, Sag Harbor had built up a thriving coastal and foreign trade. In 1789, when President George Washington designated Sag Harbor as a Port of Entry for the newly formed United States, the village had more squared-rigged vessels engaged in commerce than the Port of New York.

From 1780 to 1850, the village of Sag Harbor was a thriving whaling port; but, with the discovery of gold in California, petroleum in Pennsylvania and a general scarcity of whales, the whaling industry began to decline after 1850.

The villagers, having to devise other means of making a living, turned to industry and a new chapter in Sag Harbor’s history began. Early industries included a brass foundry, hat factories, watch making and various mills. Later industries included the Bulova Watchcase Factory, E.W. Bliss Torpedo Company, Agawam Aircraft Products, and Grumman Aerospace. Bulova was one of the last industries to survive in Sag Harbor, departing in 1981.

Once more, Sag Harbor set about re-creating itself. With the opening of the Sag Harbor Marina in 1979, the village continued to attract summer visitors, a lucrative business that began in the late 1800s.

Today, Sag Harbor is a weekend seasonal and year-round second home destination. The summer population swells with tourists and new property owners, who enjoy the old-fashioned charm of the village, while the bay is filled with pleasure craft of all types and sizes, and the streets are filled with throngs of visitors captivated by our history and our contemporary art. Sag Harbor is now an Arts & Cultural Center on the East End, with Bay Street Theater at one end, The Church Arts Center at the other, and the restored Sag Harbor Cinema in between them..