Research

Scope and Content Note

This series apparently consists of lists of land acquired by the state at comptroller's tax sales. Most of the lots are within the Adirondack Forest Preserve, but some were in other parts of the state.

The format of the list varies, but each usually contains a description of the parcel acreage, date of sale, and (sometimes) redemption or cancellation of sale. The purpose of these lists is uncertain; they may have been used as hearing or trial exhibits.

B0987-99: This accretion consists chiefly of five handwritten registers of land acquired by the state inside and outside the Forest Preserve during the tax-sale years 1871-1910. Information includes town; lot number; description of parcel; number of acres; tax sale year acquired; and remarks. Remarks include information regarding redemptions and sources of acquisition such as purchases, tax sales, or foreclosures of U.S. Deposit Fund Mortgages, and also include name of person to whom the property was sold.

Volumes listing land outside the Forest Preserve sometimes record information concerning subsequent sales by the Comptroller's Office (later by the Dept. of Taxation and Finance). Scattered information is given for sales of property as late as 1978.

Also included in the accretion are five small published volumes listing state lands either inside or outside the Forest Preserve for various years (ca. 1897-1920). Information in these volumes was gathered from original records maintained in the Comptroller's Office. The Conservation Commission published two of the volumes as appendices to their annual reports.