Milan, New York  Milan is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The town is in the northern part of the county and is very rural. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 2,370. Milan is located about north of New York City, south of Albany, and west of Boston. It is bordered by Rhinebeck and Red Hook to the west, Pine Plains to the east, Stanford to the southeast, Clinton to the south, and Gallatin to the north in Columbia County. The only major route in the town is the historic Taconic State Parkway, though NY 199 serves as the main local thoroughfare. The area that comprises Milan today was the western part of the Little Nine Partners Patent of 1706. Milan was largely a farming and mill town and remains very rural. The first settler in the area was Johannes Rowe. The son of a Palatine immigrant, Rowe bought from Robert Livingston, 3rd Lord of the Manor of Livingston, and built a stone house in 1766 on what is now Rowe Road near the Milan Town Hall. The remains of the house were photographed in 1940 for the Historic American Buildings Survey. The New York State Legislature voted on March 6, 1818, to create the town of Milan from the western part of the town of North East, to be effective "from and after the last day in March" 1818. The session laws stated that the first town meeting would be held the first Tuesday of April and at the home of Stephen Thorn, who was elected town supervisor along with John F. Bartlett, town clerk. Two 19th century histories of the town of Milan and Dutchess County (1877 and 1882) state there is no knowledge or evidence as to why the name "Milan" was chosen. But the name Milan had appeared in other areas of the state, and it was not unusual to take European city names at the time. What is now the city of Syracuse was known as "Milan" for a brief period between 1809 and 1812. A settlement south of Syracuse was originally called "Milan" in 1790 before incorporation in 1802 as the town of Locke. An unincorporated village there continued to be referred to as "Milan" but gave up its Milan Post Office designation on July 29, 1817, becoming "Locke" Post Office. This cleared the way for the operation of the Milan Post Office on August 14, 1818, at what is now Case's Corners.