Finding Aid Search

Title

Works Progress Administration sponsored surveys and studies

Series Number

A4179

Summary

This series consists of surveys and apparently unpublished studies conducted under W.P.A. sponsorship. These studies are on many subjects, but tend to focus on real estate values, land use, and population in communities in New York. Examples include police arrest survey; social and economic survey of Indian reservations; real property survey (several cities); report on Albany transients and homeless; professional and service projects; 1850 census index for Buffalo; and Erie County street names.

Creator

• United States. Works Progress Administration (N.Y.)

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Statements of escheated lands in the New Military Tract and of land sales in certain other tracts

Series Number

B1868

Summary

Escheated lands are defined as unclaimed, abandoned, or uninherited property that passes to the custody of the state. The first part of this series consists of statements of escheated lands in the Military Tract "for which no grants have been ordered by the Commissioners of the Land Office." The series also contains statements for various tracts of land and information about certain townships and land patents.

Creator

• New York (State). Secretary of State

Access Restrictions

Microfilm is not available for duplication or inter-library loan.

Title

Surveyor General land survey field books

Series Number

A4019

Summary

This is a series of surveys of unappropriated state lands or, in a few cases, land being resold. Many volumes contain surveys of land in the New Military Tract, the Totton and Crossfield Purchase, or George Scriba's patent. Volumes generally provide survey notes; name of surveyor; name and/or number of township, tract, or lot; county; date survey was completed or filed; occasional rough maps; and/or valuations of lots.

Creator

• New York (State). Surveyor General

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Deeds executed by the Holland Land Company,

Series Number

A4027

Summary

The Holland Land Company was an association of Dutch banks and other investors speculating in American land during the late 1700s. The company purchased over five million acres in central and western New York and Pennsylvania. This series consists of a portfolio of deeds (conveyances of real property) for individual lots in the Holland Purchase. Deeds are signed duplicate originals, and contain maps of lots conveyed.

Creator

• New York (State). Surveyor General

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Fines and chirographs

Series Number

J1011

Summary

Records of court agreements settling legal actions concerning conveyance of real property include writs of convenant, licenses to agree, concords, the note of the fine summarizing the writ of covenant and the concord, and the foot of the fine conveying the property. Other documents in the series include warrants of attorney, writs of dedimus potestatem, and affidavits of newspaper publication.

Creator

• New York (State). Supreme Court of Judicature (Albany)

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Outgoing correspondence regarding land matters

Series Number

B0268

Summary

This series consists of letters from the State Engineer and Surveyor regarding applications for land grants, usually lands under water, by individuals, businesses, or towns; scheduling and requests to publish notices of land sales; hearings notices on applications to work mines; requests for copies of maps, sales, and survey records; State Engineer and Surveyor requests for maps, memorandums, receipts, or other records; and instructions on preparing maps to be submitted with land grant applications.

Creator

• New York (State). State Engineer and Surveyor

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Miscellaneous field notes relating to Holland Land Company holdings and adjoining tracts

Series Number

B0254

Summary

The volumes in this series contain field notes of land belonging to the Holland Land Company and the Ogden Land Company, as well as field notes pertaining to the Connecticut Tract and Andrew Craigie's holdings. Most of the land surveyed is in Genesee, Erie, and Orleans counties.

Creator

• New York (State). State Engineer and Surveyor

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Writs of dower

Series Number

J5013

Summary

This series consists of writs of dower, issued under seal of the Supreme Court, which ordered a sheriff to command the tenant of real estate to render unto the widow of its previous owner the one third dower right due to her, and to summon him to appear before the court if he refused to do so.

Creator

• New York (State). Supreme Court of Judicature (Utica)

Access Restrictions

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

Title

New York City Mayor's Court minutes of proceedings in proof of wills

Series Number

J2032

Summary

The Mayor's Court of New York City functioned as the court of common pleas for New York City and County. Between 1786 and 1829 courts of common pleas could prove and record wills transferring real property, and also wills whose witnesses were unable to appear in court to testify. This volume contains minutes of proceedings in proof of wills. Each entry provides the name and address of the decedent in the case title and then summarizes the proceedings.

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Geographical index to land survey field books

Series Number

B1887

Summary

The index, which was compiled and maintained by the Surveyor General's Office, provides the name of county, town, tracts, patents, and purchases. State Archives Series A4019, Land survey field books, is indexed by these records.

Creator

• New York (State). Surveyor General

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Minutes of Commissioners to Extinguish Claims Against Lands Sold by the State

Series Number

B0964

Summary

Commissioners of the Land Office examined and settled claims against loyalists' lands confiscated and sold by the commissioners of forfeitures. Most claims were based on erroneous sales of land not subject to forfeiture, or the dower rights of widows of loyalists. These minutes locate and describe the bounds of the property in question; recite the substance of the claim; and state the commissioners' decision and award.

Creator

• New York (State). Comptroller's Office

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Holland Land Company field notebooks

Series Number

A4012

Summary

The Holland Land Company was an association of Dutch banks and other investors speculating in American land in the 1700s. The company purchased over five million acres in central and western New York and Pennsylvania. This series consists of Holland Land Company survey notes and includes survey data, survey diagrams, and sometimes name of village surveyed.

Creator

• New York (State). State Engineer and Surveyor

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Description of lots granted to New Yorkers in compensation for land lost to Vermont

Series Number

A4010

Summary

These lots were in a tract set aside by New York State for grants to persons who lost land as a result of the New York-Vermont boundary dispute. The descriptions of lots provide lot number, boundaries, and number of acres in each lot.

Creator

• New York (State). Surveyor General

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Maps of grants of lands under water

Series Number

19116

Summary

The series consists of maps depicting grants of land under water made by the state from 1777 through the 1900s. Each map depicts the names of individuals to whom grants were made.

Creator

• New York (State). Office of General Services. Division of Land Utilization

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Register of tax relevied

Series Number

B0957

Summary

This series consists of a register of taxes re-levied by the Comptroller on lands of non-residents after a previously unpaid tax levy had been ascertained to be illegal or void, either before or after a tax sale. Entries include the date and cause of re-levy; a description of the parcel taxed; acreage; the year of erroneous tax; and the amount levied.

Creator

• New York (State). Comptroller's Office

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Writs of arrest and execution

Series Number

J0013

Summary

This series consists mostly of two types of writs of execution: writs of fieri facias command a sheriff to levy the amount of a judgment from the moveable or real property of the judgment debtor; writs of capias ad satisfaciendum command a sheriff to arrest a losing party for a court appearance. The series also includes various other writs.

Creator

• New York (State). Supreme Court of Judicature (Utica)

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Partial calendar of "Assembly Papers"

Series Number

A1828

Summary

This series consists of a calendar covering Volumes 5 and 6 and pages 1-90 of Volume 8 of the "Assembly Papers." Entries include date of document; addressee; names of petitioners or other persons involved; summary, sometimes very detailed, of document; number of pages; and volume and page number(s) in the original "Assembly Papers." Documents calendared concern land titles and grants; expenditures; payment of debts or other compensation owed by state; construction of fortifications at New York City; and organization of the military.

Creator

• New York State Library. Manuscripts and History Section

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Receipts for land records from the Secretary of State

Series Number

A3232

Summary

This series consists of cancelled printed receipts indicating receipt of various land-related records by the State Engineer and Surveyor from the Secretary of State. Each receipt provides the date the records were received and a brief description of the items received by the State Engineer and Surveyor.

Creator

• New York (State). State Engineer and Surveyor

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Survey maps of lands in New York State

Series Number

A0273

Summary

These are maps of surveys made for landholders, for partitioning of land, and for disposition of as yet unappropriated state lands. The Surveyor General and his successor State Engineer and Surveyor produced these maps in keeping with his responsibilities for surveying and mapping state lands. A number of the maps are of townships in the State's military tract.

Creator

• New York (State). State Engineer and Surveyor

Access Restrictions

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

Title

Statement of lands sold for taxes

Series Number

B0954

Summary

This series consists of a published list of lands sold by the Comptroller for unpaid taxes. Each entry gives the sale certificate number; a brief description of the parcel sold; the acres sold; the name of the purchaser; the amount of the bid; and to whom the parcel was conveyed.

Creator

• New York (State). Comptroller's Office

Access Restrictions

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