Research


Scope and Content Note

This series consists of bound volumes containing surveyor's field notes and related material.

Field books vary in the information they contain. Every survey in the series, however, contains the date of the survey, the name of the surveyors, the name of the patent and/or a narrative description of the land surveyed, and a narrative description of each lot laid out by the surveyor, including acreage. Some field notes also contain small scale maps depicting the land surveyed and the lots laid out. Also included with many surveys from the statehood period are summary tables containing the acreage, value of each acre, and total value of each lot. A number of surveys also contain copies of legal papers filed during the land granting process and copies of "Proceedings and Balloting Books". The latter contains a narrative description of the actual meeting during which lots were assigned to the various petitioners for a grant and record which petitioners received which lots.

Field book no. 27, pp. 195-204, contains a census of the Brothertown Indians, 1795, taken pursuant to Laws of 1795, 18th Session, Chap. 41 (1795). The Brothertown reservation was located in the present town of Marshall, Oneida County. The census is published as: Roger D. Joslyn, ed., "The 1795 Census of Brothertown Indians, Oneida County," New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, 141:3 (July 2010), 213-18.