On this date in ...

1918: Thomas Patron of Albany married Ethel May Patron on Sept. 15, believing her to be of Spanish descent as she claimed when they met four weeks before, but discovered on their wedding night that she was actually African-american. He left her immediately and refused to live with her since, ultimately being granted a divorce almost three months later.

1968: Area communities facing closure of the Halfmoon Landfill in about three weeks had begun to consider stopgap measures to ensure garbage disposal in the event the area’s largest disposal company was unable to fulfill contract obligations. Capitol Division Disposal Inc., a subsidiary of Arizona Biochemical Company, had lost its bid for an extension of a town-imposed limit which required landfill operators to vacate the canal area in the Town of Halfmoon by Dec. 31.

1993: A veteran Episcopal clergyman said that he wasn’t surprised to learn that 200 fellow priests in England, many of them married, planned to join the Roman Catholic church. The Right Rev. Vincent K. Pettit, assistant bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, said the priests were leaving the Anglican Church because they objected to women priests in that country. The same thing happened in the United States in the late 1970s when Episcopal bishops voted to ordain women, Pettit said. About 100 priests nationwide left in protest and went to the Catholic Church, he said.