Albany, NY -- New York State Archives gave the Town of Manchester (Ontario County) a missing piece of its history when Gail Fischer, who heads the Rochester regional office of the State Archives, presented a volume of 1910 Justice Records to Manchester Town Clerk JoAnne Henry.
The one-of-a-kind volume was discovered by Warren Broderick, another member of the New York State Archives staff, while he was browsing at Kavanagh Books, Used & Unusual store in Wayne County. Mr. Broderick recognized that the volume was a local government record belonging to the Town of Manchester. He informed store owner Bethany Haswell, who graciously agreed to return the records, which she said had come into her possession by some mistake.
State Archivist Christine W. Ward sent Ms. Haswell a letter thanking her for permitting the return of the local government record and "abandoning an opportunity for personal gain." She commended Ms. Haswell for not only performing an act of civic duty, but also for setting "the highest standard for your peers in homes and businesses across New York State."
Ms. Ward explained that finding a government record in the hands of a private individual is not all that uncommon, but that Ms. Haswell's willingness to surrender the record was exceptional. In some cases, legal proceedings have been initiated to convince individuals to return government records to the government that created them.
"There can be many explanations for why a particular record becomes estranged from a local government," said Ms. Ward using archival parlance to describe a record’s separation from its rightful owner. A town's records may have been kept in individuals' homes before a town hall could accommodate them. Town officers changed and not all records may have been transferred.
"What is important now is that a record be reunited with all of the other historical records belonging to that government," said Ward. "Keeping a record within the body of records from which it originated gives it meaning and context. Government records are created in the course of doing the public’s business and they belong to the citizens of that locality."
Ms. Ward heads the New York State Archive, a program of the State Education Department. At its facility in the Cultural Education Center in Albany, the Archives cares for more than 200 million archival records of New York State government dating from the 1630s to the present. Through its nine regional offices and the Documentary Heritage Program, the State Archives also provides services to help 4,300 local governments and 3,000-community organizations care for their records.