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Philmont is a village in Columbia County, New York, in the northeastern part of the town of Claverack on New York State Route 217.

Philmont was once known as 'Factory Hill' because of the number of wool factories built along Agawamuck Creek.

The village derives its name from George P. Philip, who in 1845 built a large dam and a 36-acre reservoir to provide water power for his mills, and the name was given by the Harlem Railroad in compliment to him.

Agawamuck Creek drops more than 250 feet in the course of half a mile through Philmont, giving the mills a succession of water powers with falls of forty to sixty feet each.

A second reservoir of 56 acres was built up in the Taconic Mountains to guarantee water to Philmont's mills through dry seasons.

The village of Philmont was incorporated in 1891, by which time it had become the industrial center of Columbia County with a population of about 3,000.

In 1873 an estimated 3,671 Philmont residents made up two-thirds of the entire population of the town of Claverack.

Wool, hosiery, and straw paper mills were Philmont's economic backbone until the 1950s, when the mills moved south; the last mill closed in 1963.

The 2020 census counted 1,377 residents in Philmont, less than half its mill-era peak, and recent Census Bureau survey estimates put the village at roughly 580 households.

Summit Lake, the 36-acre reservoir George Philip created for the mills in the 1800s, still sits within walking distance of Philmont's Main Street.