Research


Custodial History

The series originally consisted of 38 volumes dating from 1680 to 1822, but volumes 1, 2, 4, and 5 were destroyed in the 1911 New York State Capitol fire and only fragments of volume 3 (1702-1750) were salvaged. The surviving records were transferred to the State Library in 1925. The series was transferred to the State Archives and accessioned in 1978.

A1854-22: This document was gifted to the New York State Archives by a private individual. All the retained copies of such commissions retained by the provincial secretary were destroyed in the New York capitol fire of 1911. Only pre-fire manuscript and typescript abstracts of such commissions remain as evidence of governors' commissions and appointments in New York's colonial period. The wording of such commissions and appointments was not preserved. This document is generally important because it contains the complete legal wording of a late colonial commission of oyer and terminer. This particular commission has special interest because in the later 1760s Dutchess County was the scene of considerable strife between landlords and tenants, which resulted in numerous criminal trials.