Regarding fences in Amenia

Fences. There sure are a lot of them — of many different types, uses and colors.  

Here are some of my findings here in Amenia at the present. Types: Wood, metal, stone, brick. Uses: Property and crop boundary, animal pasturing, horse training, aesthetics. Colors: White, brown, black, green, red and natural. 

Then there’s the history! And when you start “reading history” you can end up in the most amazing places. My major “stops” investigating  fences  included: The first Amenia precinct meeting;  the “2013 Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook, Volume 92”; McKinney’s “Consolidated Laws of New York Annotated Book 61, 1984-85”; John and Richard Polhemus’s “Up on Preston Mountain,” Purple Mountain Press, first edition 2005; and picking up the telephone and talking to Wayne Euvrard, town assessor.                                                                                         

The first Amenia precinct meeting was held at Roswell Hopkins’s house near the Old Meeting House, stated Newton Reed in his fourth edition of “Early History of Amenia,” on page 47. It was on “the first Tuesday in April” in 1762. Among the many appointments were three gentlemen as fence viewers. Also voted was, “that a fence, 4-feet-and-4-inches high, well wrought and substantial, shall be deemed lawful.” 

I did not find any more about it in this book so I decided to go on to Google and found this: “A fence viewer is a town or city official who administers fence laws by inspecting new fence; and, [assists with the] settlement of disputes arising from trespass by livestock that have escaped enclosure.” 

Fences were first built by New England farmers in the 17th Century, along the edges of their property, while clearing their land from the many boulders and stones left by retreating glaciers. Many remain today; it was a serious offence to move or modify them illegally. 

Will Tatum, the Dutchess County  historian, wrote an article in the 2013 Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook entitled, “The Birth of a County: Establishing a Government in Dutchess, 1713-1721.” He included information about fence viewers. Tatum said that they were predecessors of today’s Department of Public Works and had at first been elected in 1691 “to encourage the expansion of road networks within the county and insure that regulations regarding the width and repair of the roads were enforced.”

The Polhemus Brothers, John and Richard, in writing about stone fences in their story, “Up on Preston Mountain,” said, “Stone walls penetrate the woods on the mountain. Constructed by years of labor from men, boys and oxen, the walls outline old meadows, pasture and tillage. The pioneers called them ‘fences not walls,’ emphasizing their use in an agricultural society.” Ancient plow land still reveals the back furrows, they added, before going on to write about the abandoned area.                   

In McKinney’s “Consolidated Laws of New York Annotated Book 61,” it states under the heading “Powers and duties of fence viewers,” that, “The assessors shall perform all the duties and shall exercise all the powers here in after imposed and confirmed upon fence viewers. In a town having a sole appointed assessor, the assessor and the members of the Town Board shall act as fence viewers. This law was effective in 1973 and replaced the board of review as fence viewers.” 

When I talked to Wayne Euvrard, he said that the current zoning law defines a fence as “a hedge, structure or partition created for the purpose of enclosing a piece of land.” 

He further added how well he remembers helping out on his grandfather’s farm on Sharon Mountain, when he was a child, picking up stones and piling them up to add to the many stone fences already there.

Arlene Iuliano is the Amenia town historian.