Amityville, New York

New York

Amityville got its name because a town meeting fell apart into shouting, and somebody yelled that what the room needed was some amity.

historicalculture

The village had a clumsy name for two hundred years. Huntington West Neck South. Settlers came in the sixteen fifties for the salt hay, good fodder for animals, and Chief Wyandanch granted the first deed to land there in 1658. By 1846 the residents wanted a post office, and a post office needs a shorter name. The meeting called to pick one turned into bedlam. According to village lore, one exasperated participant stood up and said what this meeting needs is some amity. The name stuck. A competing version credits a mill owner named Samuel Ireland, who wanted the place called after his boat, the Amity. Either way, the name records an agreement rather than a person or a river. Formal incorporation came in 1894. By the early nineteen hundreds there were big hotels on the bay, and the guest list got strange. Annie Oakley was said to visit the vaudeville performer Fred Stone. Will Rogers lived across the boulevard. Al Capone had a house there too.

This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
The meeting turned into bedlam and one participant was to exclaim, "What this meeting needs is some amity."

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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