New York State Department of State Incorporation Certificates

These certificates were authorized by an act of the Legislature dated March 22, 1811, entitled "An Act relative to Incorporations for manufacturing purposes". This act provided "that at anytime within five years hereafter, any five or more persons who shall be desires to form a company for the purpose of manufacturing woolen, cotton, or linen goods, or for the purpose of making glass, or for the purpose of making from ore, bar-iron anchors mill irons, steel nail rods, loop iron, and mongery, sheet copper, sheet lead shot, white lead and red lead, may make, sign and acknowledge before a Justice of the Supreme Court, a judge of the Court of Common Pleas or a Master in Chancery, and file in office of the Secretary of this State, a Certificate in writing."

This series consists of a register containing copies of certificates of incorporation of manufacturing companies. The 1811 act provided for the filing of certificates of incorporation, and the necessary information to include: "the corporate name of the said company, the object for which the company is formed, the amount of the capital stocks of said company, the number of shares of which the said stock shall consist, the number of trustees and their names, who shall manage the concerns of the said company for the first year and the names of the town and county in which the manufacturing operations of the company are to be carried out." The register contains 159 entries arranged chronologically according to the date on which the certificate of incorporations was filed. There is an alphabetical index (by name of the company) at the end of the volume. In addition to the register, the series also contains the original copy of the first incorporation certificate ever issued by the State.

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