Amenia is one of the original towns formed by act of March 7, 1788. It comprises the width of the Oblong Tract, and the east tier of lots in the Great Nine Partners Patent.
Inhabitants prior to European incursion were Pequot, in a village on the west side of a pond they called Wequagnoch. Along with related Native Americans from Connecticut, they held Pow Wows on land both before and after the incorporation of the town.
1700s
In 1703 Richard Sackett was granted a patent for land along Wassaic Creek. As this land was already included in the previous Great Nine Partners Patent, Sackett's title was invalid. Sackett was also one of the partners in the Little Nine Partners Patent. He settled about one mile south of Wassaic at a site that was later called the "Steel Works", as furnace and foundry were established there during the Revolution to manufacture steel for the use of the army. There was a forge at that location as early as 1770.
In 1724 Captain Garret Winegar (Winnegar) came to Amenia Union from East Camp in Columbia County, New York. The Winegars were among the Palatine families from the Middle Rhine that had settled in the Province of New York in 1710 under the sponsorship of Queen Anne. A second Palatine family, that of Johannes Rouh (Rowe), came to Hitchcock's Corner (Amenia Union) sometime prior to 1731.
Between 1740 and 1750, a migration of settlers from Connecticut and Massachusetts began to arrive in Amenia. They were seeking inexpensive land and religious liberty. Paine, King, Holmes, Cleveland, Mead, Kinney, Adams, Hollister, Gillett, Hopkins, Wheeler, Collin, Judson, Davis, Delano, Doty, Rowley, Lothrop, and Bump were some of the early family names.
Capt. Stephen Hopkins donated land for the Amenia Burying Ground in the 1740’s, and for the Red Meeting House in 1758. The Red Meeting House was the congregational church, which had been established by Abraham Paine and Gardiner Gillett in 1748 as “Carmel in the Nine Partners.” It later became the Amenia Presbyterian Church.
Those who arrived in the 1750’s and early 1760’s included the Clines, Barlows, Swifts, Reeds, Chamberlains, Hitchcocks, and Garnseys.
Samuel Hitchcock, for whom the hamlet was named, arrived in about 1757. Dr. Thomas Young lived at the "Corner" for several years and married a daughter of Captain Winegar. The town was named by Young, derived from Latin and meaning "pleasant to the eye".
The house of worship known as the "Red Meeting House" was built in 1758, and stood about a mile northeast of the village of Amenia. George Whitefield preached there in the summer of 1770. The Precinct of Amenia was established by act of the colonial legislature in 1762.
The first church at “The City,” a hamlet now known as Smithfield, was built in 1750. It was replaced in 1814. The present edifice was built in 1847. Over the centuries, because of its location, the congregation has been comprised of families from the towns of Amenia, Stanford, Washington and North East. It was established as a Congregational Church but became Presbyterian in 1824.
In 1759, the Oblong Society, now known as the Union Society, was founded at Amenia Union, and Rev. Ebenezer Knibloe was hired as the first minister. The Round Top Meeting House was built prior to 1755, but had no fulltime minister. After Mr. Knibloe’s death in 1785, the building was taken down and rebuilt a mile and a half south of Amenia Union, not far from where the South Amenia Cemetery was later established. In 1881, the congregation relocated a little further south and built its present edifice, the South Amenia Presbyterian Church.
In the summer of 1778, a large number of prisoners - mostly Hessians, taken at the battle of Saratoga the year before - were marched through the town on their way to Fishkill Landing, where they crossed the Hudson. It is said that some of the Hessian soldiers solicited the people to aid them in escaping; a few succeeded, and remained in this country.
Jacob Bockee, a captain in the company in Col. Willet's Regiment, was a member of the Assembly in 1795 and 1797, where he introduced a bill for the abolition of slavery in the state. Most of the slaves in the town were manumitted in the manner and under the conditions prescribed by law. Owners were not permitted to make free and cast off any slave who was not capable of providing for himself. In 1824, three years before the institutional abolition of slavery in the state, there were 32 slaves in Amenia.
1800s
About the year 1812, a company was organized in this town for the manufacture of woolen goods, styled as the "Amenia Manufacturing Company" and owned by the Barker, Benton, Ingraham, Park, and Canfield families. Its factory was located on the banks of Webatuck Creek at Leedsville.
Gail Borden, an entrepreneur and inventor, founded the New York Condensed Milk Company with his partner, Jeremiah Milbank, and opened the first pilot plant in Wassaic in 1861. During the Civil War, Mr. Borden’s company prospered through major contracts supplying the Union Army with previously unobtainable milk. Following Mr. Borden’s death in 1874, the New York Condensed Milk Company continued producing new products and added processed milk and evaporated milk to its offerings.
1900s
Joel and Amy Spingarn were active in the Civil Rights Movement and hosted two critical early meetings of the NAACP at Troutbeck — known today as the Amenia Conferences of 1916 and 1933. Among the distinguished attendees were Mary Ovington, co-founder of the NAACP, and W.E.B. Du Bois, sociologist and co-founder of The Crisis magazine, who wrote The Amenia Conference, An Historic Negro Gathering, Troutbeck Leaflet Number Eight, published by Troutbeck Press in 1925.
Joel was chairman of the NAACP Board of Directors and one the organization’s first Jewish leaders, and, in 1914, Joel, Amy and Joel’s brother Arthur Spingarn, established the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP’s highest honor, awarded annually in perpetuity to “the man or woman of African descent and American citizenship who shall have made the highest achievement during the preceding year or years in any honorable field.” Recipients include Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Duke Ellington, General Colin Powell and Maya Angelou.
The Wassaic State School opened on Jan. 7, 1931 as one of five new statewide facilities established to house and work with individuals who suffered with developmental disabilities. Prior to the New York Department of Mental Hygiene’s acquisition of the property in 1926, it was three separate farms. The Wassaic operation went through two name changes, first to the Wassaic Development Center and later to the Taconic Development Disabilities Service Office (DDSO). By 1970 it had pushed Amenia’s population to almost 9,000 residents and was the area’s largest employer. The facility closed in late 2013 in order to integrate individuals with developmental disabilities into the community.