Proving that having an artist colony really can provide stimulus for the economy, the village is in the process of appraising an art collection currently on display at the Ellenville Public Library and Museum, a collection that has already been estimated as worth between $150,000 and $250,000. Mayor Jeff Kaplan termed the collection as "excess property that we clearly do not need to run the village," and as such, the art, which consists of original works by E.L. Henry and Currier & Ives, the collection will likely be sold in an effort to help the village recover from its current economic woes. While it is still unkown as to how or when the village came to possess the five Currier & Ives prints, the six E.L. Henry paintings were given to the village as a gift from Henry himself in 1918 shortly before he passed away the next year. The painter summered in Cragsmoor in the last decades of his life, eventually dying here, an area-resident at the end of his days.

According to the book, Life and Work of E. L. Henry, by Elizabeth McCausland and published by SUNY Albany in 1945, the painter was one of the first artists to make his way to Cragsmoor to begin the artist colony, and that "in Henry's time…[Cragsmoor] was populated only by farmers; he and the artists who followed him were pioneers." The book goes on to document that in Cragsmoor, "Henry developed his particular gift of observation into what is his most interesting expression, genre paintings of country life. In the early days when summer people began to visit the community…conditions were primitive."

It seems that even in Henry's time there was a significant division between those who vacationed here, and those who lived here year-round: "Life at Cragsmoor was simple. The world was divided into summer people and the so-called 'natives.' The 'natives' had been there first. But they had to give way to the newcomers, selling them their land and supplying food and services. The Mances, Terwilligers, Deckers, Coddingtons, Kindbergs, Peter P. Brown, Botsfords, Bleakleys, Cooks — these are some of the people who settled 'The Mountain' and still live there. Almost all of them appear somewhere or somehow in Henry's work. They built his house, supplied eggs, chickens, butter and milk, plowed his garden, housed and fed the Henrys on flying trips to Cragsmoor before they opened their house."

Many of the E.L. Henry works owned by the village feature such portraits of Ellenville/Wawarsing citizens from over a hundred years ago, according to a 1979 document describing each of the paintings. The art offers a look into the area's past, providing a view of what kinds of interesting characters populated this unique part of the world.

One such portrait, from 1889 is set on the D&H Canal, and features "Fred Thomas…a Hunchback Canal Boatman and Guide to the Trout streams," who was, apparently, murdered. Another portrait depicts a woman named Aunt Nelly Bloomer, "painted from life on her 100th birthday," who died at 103 two years later. Other paintings show John S. Billings, "an esteemed citizen of Ellenville, [and] a lover of Roses," Joseph E. Maure, "carpenter of Ellenville," and Martin Terwillger "at the age of 95." While the paintings may not be essential to running the village, it seems evident that these works offer a view of an Ellenville that's long-gone…yet whose legacy can still be felt.

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