New York State Supreme Court of Judicature (Albany) Lists of Freeholders Qualified to Serve as Jurors

Alphabetic by county, then chronological by year.

Sheriffs and county clerks compiled lists of freeholders qualified to serve as jurors in the trial of issues in the Supreme Court. Lists provide jurors' names, places of residence, and occupations or ranks.

This fragmentary series consists of lists of freeholders qualified to serve as jurors in the trial of issues in the Supreme Court of Judicature, as returned by sheriffs or county clerks. Each list gives the names of freeholders, their places of abode, and their "additions" (occupations or ranks). Most of the lists were compiled and returned for the empanelling of struck juries. A law of 1786 required the sheriff of the county where an issue was to be tried to make up a special list of freeholders, if the court ordered a struck jury. From the list of freeholders a shorter list of forty-eight disinterested persons was compiled by the court clerk. From this list the attorneys for the opposing parties struck off names alternately until a panel of twenty-four jurors was left. A law of 1798 transferred the duty of preparing lists of freeholders for struck juries to the county clerks and stated that these special juries would not be allowed except in cases distinguished by their "importance or intricacy."

The lists of freeholders for struck juries in this series include the names of the parties in the cause to be tried, and sometimes the names of freeholders have lines drawn through them, made as they were "struck off." The law of 1786 also required sheriffs to attach lists of freeholders and judges and justices of the peace to writs of venire facias juratores. Only one example of such is found (Columbia County, 1793). The same act directed sheriffs to compile and return annually lists of all persons qualified to serve as jurors in their counties. Several of the lists in this series were prepared for this purpose. The returns of jurors for New York City and County for 1816, 1816/19, and 1821 are actually statistical summaries by ward. For 1816 the total number of jurors is given, along with the number of male and female whites, free blacks, slaves, and aliens. Additional totals for the city as a whole are given for 1819, through the figures by wards are repeated from the 1816 return. The return for 1821 is made on the printed form used for the New York State Census of 1821. The number of jurors is added to the other statistics concerning electors, livestock, and manufacturing establishments.

Freeholders were defined in the law as persons possessed of real property worth at least 60 pounds, above all mortgages and other encumbrances thereon. Property held by leasehold did not qualify. Residents of incorporated cities might qualify if their personal property exceeded the same amount.

Container list is available at the repository.

The Court of Appeals placed these records on deposit at the Historical Documents Collection, Queens College, from 1973-1982.

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