New York State Assembly Correspondence, Petitions, and Reports on Defense of the Frontier, Onondaga Salt Springs, and Other…

Arranged by subject, then chronological within some subject groups.

These records concern legislative activity relating to various matters including the militia; land use and improvement; supervision of counties; involvement with state officials; and supervision of schools. The records include correspondence, petitions, and reports in the following areas:

(1) Defense of the state's northern and western frontiers (1794): correspondence between Governor George Clinton and various government officials and military officers concerning distribution and storage of arms and construction of fortifications; correspondence from frontier settlements requesting arms for protection against the British and the Six Nations Indians; protests by British military personnel against American settlement on Indian lands; Clinton's correspondence to President Washington regarding the threat to the frontiers and measures being taken; correspondence from Secretary of War Knox to Clinton regarding precautionary measures to be taken; and resolutions and correspondence to Clinton from the Commissioners for Fortifying the Northern and Western Frontiers of the State of New York concerning distribution of arms and construction of fortifications.

(2) Onondaga Salt Springs (1804-1830): reports (many printed) of the superintendent and commissioners of the Salt Springs regarding finances, land rights of lessees, and manufacture of salt (transcripts of other reports of the Onondaga Commissioners are in series A0042, Transcripts of Reports Regarding Claims for Revolutionary War Service, pp. 283-284, 394-408, 429-448); petitions to the legislature from persons seeking to manufacture salt from the Salt Springs, dig for salt in an area adjacent to the Salt Springs, end inspections of the Salt Springs by the superintendent, gain exclusive rights to certain sections of the Salt Springs, or abolish taxes on salt manufactures; reports of Standing Committee on the Manufacture of Salt on petitions referred to them; and report of commissioners investigating possible future legislation relating to the manufacture of salt regarding impurities in the salt, methods of salt manufacturers, and smuggling of salt to avoid taxes.

(3) Reports of county clerks to the secretary of state regarding: number of writs returned, number of cases tried, and amount of judgments in each county's Court of Common Pleas; and incorporation of churches and religious societies in each county, giving title of church or society and date of certificate of incorporation.

(4) Secretary of state's correspondence with the legislature regarding: payment for clerks; acquiring copies of the laws of each state; plans to produce maps for each town in the state; adoption of standard weights and measures; and arrangement and indexing of Dutch records in the secretary of state's office.

(5) School supervision: petitions from churches and religious societies for funding for church schools; and opinions of educators supporting the educational system developed by Joseph Lancaster.

Microfilm is available for use at the New York State Archives or through interlibrary loan.

Alphabetical name and subject index.

In the 1830s the secretary of state's office bound these records as Volume 45 of "Assembly Papers," but they were disbound after suffering minor burn damage in the State Capitol Fire of 1911.

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