Research


Administrative History

Section 1171 of the Laws of the Colony of New York, passed on January 8, 1762, stipulated that patentees or other proprietors of large tracts of land who wished to divide their land among themselves or for sale, were obliged to have a survey made for these purposes. Two copies of the field notes and two copies of a map produced from these notes were required to be produced by the surveyor. One set of field notes and maps were filed with the secretary of the colony and the other with the clerk of the county where the greatest part of the land lay.

After the establishment of New York State a similar system was adopted for the disposal of unappropriated state-owned land. Chapter 60 of the Laws of 1784 required the surveyor general to have a survey made each time a group of settlers petitioned the state for a land grant, so that the land granted could be equitably divided into lots. Four copies of the surveyor's field notes and four copies of a map produced from these notes were to be produced. These were filed in the secretary of state's office, the surveyor general's office, the office of the clerk of the county where the land lay, and the clerk of the town where the land lay.

Throughout the late eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century the legislature from time to time directed the surveyor general to have special surveys conducted to divide privately held patents or estates. Multiple copies of survey notes and maps were produced from these surveys and filed in a manner similar to surveys undertaken under Chapter 60 of the Laws of 1784. In 1819 the legislature directed the secretary of state to bind and/or label all records in his custody. At that time all surveys in the custody of the secretary of state were arranged and bound into the present series. The maps relating to these surveys were numbered and are now in the custody of the Office of General Services, Division of Land Utilization.