Danbury Library Blog

Last week while working on the Reference desk I received a call about the Fairfield County Courthouse at 71 Main Street. The caller had noticed that on the cornerstone was the number 5899. The caller wanted to know the meaning of this number.

My first thought was that it might be a date from the Hebrew calendar but the caller had already investigated that possibility and it did not apply. I did some searching on courthouses in Connecticut but could find no leads. I then switched to searching courthouse cornerstones and found a photograph from a New York State courthouse that had the same number on it. When I looked at more details about the photograph it listed the initials A. L. with the number. I then searched for the meaning of the abbreviations for A. L. (which were quite lengthy) and found that the meaning that applied here was Anno Lucis which is Latin for Year of Light. This is the calendar system for the Masons. This calendar system counts years from 4000 B.C. To convert a modern date to A.L. simply add 4,000 to the year from the A. D. (Anno Domini) system. So we take 1899 (year of construction of the courthouse)and add 4,000 and come up with 5899.