An often overlooked resource for early American family research are court records. One manuscript collection of note is “New York City and New York State Legal Documents from the 18th and 19th Centuries.”
This collection was originally acquired by the NYG&B, and is now easily accessible at the New York Public Library. The collection - comprised of court and legal records ranging from 1775 to 1835 - includes promissory notes, dockets of cases, bail bonds, warrants for arrest, some wills, and other family information.
Most of the documents originated in the New York City Mayor’s Court (also known as the Court of Common Pleas) and the New York Supreme Court of Judicature.
The New York City Mayor's Court
The New York City Mayor’s Court was established in 1664.1 Originally presided over by the mayor, that power eventually fell to the recorder (a high-ranking magistrate of the court2), and later to justices as we know them in the contemporary sense.
It was not customary during the colonial period for judges to hail from the legal profession. Instead, members of the merchant class often became judges. The position of recorder, though, usually went to someone with a legal background.
The New York City Mayor’s Court was New York City’s version of a lower level, or “town,” court. According to “Duely & Constantly Kept,” published by the New York State Court of Appeals and the New York State Archives and Records Administration, “Each justice was empowered to preside alone over a civil court, which tried personal actions involving demands for $50 or less. . . . Civil actions involving slander, assault and battery, or recovery of real or personal property could not be brought in this court, no matter what the amount of damages claimed.”3
The New York Supreme Court of Judicature
The New York State Supreme Court of Judicature was established by the New York Assembly in 1691. This court exercised original jurisdiction over major criminal cases, civil actions where the amount demanded was more than twenty pounds, and all actions concerning title to real property.
Proceedings were transferred from the lower courts, such as the Mayor’s Court, to the Supreme Court by writs of error, habeas corpus, certiorari, and by warrant.4 The Supreme Court also reviewed civil judgments of the New York City Mayor’s Court.5
innkeeper, for a debt of $25 (Misc. Box, Arrest
Warrants)
The Archives of the New York County Clerk’s office holds the records of the Supreme Court that were filed by the clerk in New York City, as well as almost all the surviving records of the colonial supreme court.6
Most of the extant records of the Supreme Court offices in upstate New York are preserved in the New York State Archives. The New-York Historical Society holds the Supreme Court minute books for 1693-1704. The County Clerk’s office holds circuit court minute books and Court of Oyer and Terminer minute books as well as indictment papers. Due to court orders and statutes authorizing the destruction of specific types of Supreme Court records, many of the records prior to 1847 no longer exist.7
What is in the Collection
The collection of documents held by The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society most likely contains copies of records that were held by the lawyers’ offices.
Many of the documents in this collection pertain to debt. By 1787, “Over five hundred debtors were arrested in New York County every year. By posting a bond with the sheriff, those with means could be released to live within prescribed ‘gaol limits.’ Those without means, rarely fewer than a hundred at a time, were locked up and required by law to supply their own necessaries.”8 Supreme Court documents relating to a debtor’s case would typically include a petition by creditors for attachment of a debtor’s property, itemizing his debts, and a warrant to the sheriff to attach the debtor’s property.9
This seems to hold true in regard to this collection of legal documents, as it contains several itemized promissory notes as well as warrants stating that the debtor was “bound” to the sheriff for the specified amount of money. The “action of debt” was a form of action used in the Supreme Court of Judicature to recover a certain, or liquidated, sum of money owed by one person to another. The formula that was used in a plaintiff’s declaration usually reads “Plea that (defendant) render unto (plaintiff) the sum of (dollars).”10
Interpreting Discoveries
Based on an historical analysis of the legal system of the period, one can trace the likely pattern and use of the records included in this collection. Due to an economic depression, many New Yorkers fell on hard times. Owing money to their creditors, as indicated in promissory notes and affidavits, struggling citizens were arrested for debt and were bound to James Morris, Sheriff of New York City, for the amount they owed.
“Bound for the limits,” they were forced to remain in the New Gaol, or the debtors’ prison, as it was known. Numerous receipts for bail posted to the court clerk and letters from attorneys requesting the discharge of prisoners indicates that the debtors and other prisoners remained in jail until their bail was posted or their debts paid.
William Dally, and Abraham Dally in 1801,
allowing Seaman, then in custody of the
Sheriff on civil charges, to “go at large
within the liberties of the jail of the city
of New-York.” (Misc. Box – Bonds for the
limits)
Using the Collection
Those planning to use the collection for research will want to consult the archive portal for the collection, which includes detailed finding aids.
The majority of the collection (Series 1) is arranged alphabetically by the last name of the lawyer working on the case. However, a number of the documents do not include a lawyer’s name.
This could be due in part to the practice of representing oneself in court in propria persona. According to Black’s Dictionary, this comes from the Latin phrase “for one’s self”[11] and refers to acting on one’s own behalf. The phrase is generally used to identify a person who is acting as his or her own attorney in a lawsuit. Since many of the defendants mentioned in these documents are debtors, it makes sense that they would not be able to afford an attorney to represent them in court.
The documents that do not include the name of an attorney (Series 2) are organized by type of document. They are as follows:
- Affidavits
- Arrest warrants
- Receipts for bail posted
- Bonds for the limits
- Documents indicating that the defendant is “bound” to the sheriff of New York City for debt
- Requests for prisoners’ discharge, promissory notes
- Legal documents referring to pleas of trespass
- Writs of error
- Documents having to do with property
- Wills
- Family information or the Court of Chancery
- Other miscellaneous legal and business documents.
Series Descriptions
Series 1
Title: Legal documents organized alphabetically by the last name of the lawyer
Dates: 1795-1826, with about ninety-five per cent of the materials falling between 1799-1801. There are selected documents from 1775, 1795, and the period of 1806-1835.
Volume: 5 boxes, 2.3 cubic feet (2.1 linear feet)
Summary: The documents include bonds for the limits, warrants for arrest, dockets of cases, requests by lawyers for the discharge of prisoners, and receipts for bail posted.
Available finding aids: List of the names of lawyers that are included in these documents. See index. For documents that mention lawyers whose last names fall alphabetically between Adriance and Bogert, there is an index to all persons mentioned in the document in addition to the lawyers.
unto Ebenezer Stephens of a plea of trespass on the case to his damages sixty dollars.”
(Bache–Bowne File)
Series 2
Title: Documents that do not include the name of a lawyer
Dates: 1795-1835, with the bulk of the materials falling between 1799-1801. There are selected documents from 1775, 1795, and the period of 1806-1835.
Volume: 1 box, .47 cubic feet (.5 linear feet)
Summary: Documents include affidavits, arrest warrants, receipts for bail posted, bonds for the limits, documents indicating that the defendant is “bound” to the sheriff of New York City for debt, requests for prisoners’ discharge, promissory notes, legal documents referring to pleas of trespass, writs of error, documents having to do with property, wills, family information, and the Court of Chancery, and other miscellaneous legal and business documents.
Megan Von Behren is a Master of Library Science student at the Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. A former NYG&B Library intern with an interest in genealogy, she is a full-time technical services librarian for Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, a Manhattan law firm.
Notes.
[1] Historical Society of New York Courts (http://www.nycourts.gov/history/legal-history-new-york/history-new-york-legal-eras.html).
[2] Black’s Law Dictionary (St. Paul, Minn., 1999).
[3] New York State Court of Appeals and the New York State Archives and Records Administration, “Duely & Constantly Kept”: A History of the New York Supreme Court, 1691-1847 and an Inventory of its Records (Albany, Utica, and Geneva Offices), 1797-1847 [hereafter cited as Court of Appeals] (Albany: New York State Archives and Records Administration, 1991), 104.
[4] Ibid., 1.
[5] Ibid., 77.
[6] Ibid., xi
[7] Ibid., 9.
[8] Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham, A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 381.
[9] Court of Appeals, 81.
[10] Ibid., 99.
[11] Black’s Law Dictionary (note 2, above).
by Megan Von Behren
Originally published in The NYG&B Newsletter, Summer 2001
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