What's in a date?

AMENIA — Don’t ever say Arlene Iuliano, the recently appointed town historian, is slacking on the job.

A seemingly innocuous question from Supervisor Wayne Euvrard got a rather complicated answer from Iuliano at the March 11 Town Board meeting.

Euvrard, who was away on vacation during the meeting, had sent Iuliano an e-mail wondering how old the town of Amenia actually is.

Turns out that’s a tricky question. The year 1704 might be the most common answer, seeing that the town celebrated three centuries worth of Amenia a few years back. A giant turquoise flag left over from those festivities is pinned on the wall behind the Town Board during its meetings.

But a closer inspection of the flag, and Amenia’s history, leaves some room for interpretation.

Technically, 1704 is the date that a land patent was granted to Richard Sackett, the first settler of the area, who hunkered down in Wassaic.

However, the patent was ultimately found to be invalid; the land was already included in the  Nine Partners Patent, which had been granted seven years earlier.

And even more technically, the (not yet) United States of America was still under British rule and English law, meaning it wasn’t legally a town until the Act of the 7th March, 1788, after the revolution, when the term “town� replaced “precinct.�

The long and short of it is that Iuliano isn’t quite sure yet, but like any dedicated historian, she’s sure the answer is out there somewhere.

“I’ll keep on pursuing it,� she said. “I am keeping busy.�