New York State Superintendent of Common Schools Circular Relating to Common School Celebrations

This series consists of a circular, dated August 1, 1824, issued by Acting Superintendent of Common Schools J. V. N. Yates to the commissioners, inspectors, trustees, and teachers of common schools, and to the town clerks and district clerks of New York State. Town clerks were charged with providing an accurate account of the celebrations in each town to the acting superintendent of common schools. One side of the document provides instructions for establishing common school celebrations in each town, to be held in a church or public place of worship. The other side provides a rationale for holding these events in order to encourage "learning and the promotion of virtue."

Photocopy is available.

Substantial portions of the Commissioners' records (including texts from the lost volumes pre-dating 1723) are published, either full text or summaries, in: Cadwallader Colden, The History of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New-York in America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958; first pub. in 1727 [Part I] and 1747 [Part II]). Colden's preface states that he drew liberally from the minutes of the Indian Commissioners, often transcribing their proceedings verbatim.

Substantial portions of the Commissioners' records (including texts from the lost volumes pre-dating 1723) are published, either full text or summaries, in: Peter Wraxall, An Abridgment of the Indian Affairs Contained in Four Folio Volumes, Transacted in the Colony of New York, from the Year 1678 to the Year 1751, ed. Charles Howard McIlwain (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1915). McIlwain's introduction discusses the history of the Indian Commissioners and their records. Wraxall's manuscript abridgment was destroyed when the New York State Library burned on March 29, 1911.

Substantial portions of the Commissioners' records (including texts from the lost volumes pre-dating 1723) are published, either full text or summaries, in: Lawrence H. Leder, ed., "The Livingston Indian Records 1666-1723," Pennsylvania History, vol. 23, no. 1 (Jan. 1956), pp. 1-240. Robert Livingston of Albany served as secretary to the Indian Commissioners. The manuscript "Indian records" edited by Leder is in the collection of Livingston family papers now in the J. Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City.

Substantial portions of the Commissioners' records (including texts from the lost volumes pre-dating 1723) are published, either full text or summaries, in: Daniel K. Richter, ed., "Rediscovered Links in the Covenant Chain: Previously Unpublished Transcripts of New York Indian Treaty Minutes, 1677-1691," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 92 (1982), 45-85. The manuscript is in the collections of the American Antiquarian Society. Richter's introduction suggests that it was prepared for Governor William Burnet about 1727.

Proceedings of many Indian conferences are published in: Edmund B. O'Callaghan, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York, 11 vols. (Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1856-1861), especially Vols. 3-8, "London Documents."

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of the material.