Museum speaker to focus on foundry

Cornwall — The Hudson Highlands Nature Museum, in partnership with the Cornwall Presbyterian Church, will present its Winter Evening Speakers Series: West Point Foundry Preserve: Unearthing the Past, Forging a Future on Tuesday, Feb. 16, at 7:30 p.m. at the Cornwall Presbyterian Fellowship Hall, 222 Hudson Street, Cornwall-on-Hudson. Rita D. Shaheen, director of parks for Scenic Hudson, will talk about how Scenic Hudson is preserving and interpreting the foundry in a way that provides information and lets the site itself stir the imagination as nature and history converge. The West Point Foundry, established in 1818, employed hundreds of workers who manufactured some of the nation’s first steam engines, locomotives and ironclad ships, as well as Parrott guns. Suggested donation: $7. Museum members and church members, $5. Beverages and desserts available. For more information call 534-5506, ext. 204 or visit www.hhnaturemuseum.org.