INTRODUCTION HIS volume begins the publication of the sixty-eight engrossed manuscript volumes of the MINUTES OF THE COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, preserved in the office of the City Clerk, numbered volumes 8 to 75, both inclusive. As they fill a gap in an otherwise nearly unbroken series of related records. from the Dutch régime, in 1653, to the present time, a particular statement of the relationship is presented here. On February 2, 1653, Director-General Peter Stuyvesant and his Council proclaimed a form of municipal government for New Amsterdam, granting “a bench of justice," consisting of two burgomasters and five schepens, to be served by a secretary or clerk and a boode or messenger. Both judicial and administrative functions were defined in the instrument as promulgated.* The results of the execution of these functions were recorded in volumes of court minutes, executive or administrative minutes, and miscellaneous secretarial record-books, such as attestations, proofs, and declarations made by individuals; contracts; ground briefs and conveyances of land; mortgages; charter parties; sales of vessels, etc. With the change to an English system of municipal government in June, 1665, until 1673, and again after the English reoccupation in 1674, the records took the form of Mayor's Court minutes. From 1675 another series of minutes of the Common Council came into being, which continued during the English régime until 1776. The City of New York was under a military form of government during the remainder of the Revolutionary War. For a while after the treaty of peace a readjustment in the government of the city took place, and it was not until 1784 that the regular business of Mayor and Aldermen in Common Council bore fruit in systematic minutes. They have been continued through the various ramifications of government until today; but printed volumes have been issued contemporaneously only since May 10, 1831, with the single exception of the records for the year 1871. On October 2, 1895, Mayor William L. Strong appointed a committee of citizens "to consider the condition of the City Library [then * For particulars see Stokes, I. N. P., The Iconography of Manhattan Island, I: 38-39. V in the City Hall], with a view to making such suggestions and improvements as will make it a credit to the City, and a proper and desirable place for the custody of the City's valuable Archives." Six days later, the Board of Aldermen passed a resolution, which the Mayor approved on the 15th, directing the said committee, "under the supervision of the Clerk of the Board of Aldermen, to make translations of, and print, such of the Records contained in the City Hall, as they may desire; and that the Clerk of the Board is hereby authorized to loan to said Committee such records or books as shall be necessary to carry on their work, and shall take proper receipts therefor." The committee selected the court minutes of burgomasters and schepens of New Amsterdam, a portion of the administrative minutes of the burgomasters, and the earliest English minutes of the Mayor's Court of the City of New York to 1673. For carrying out the project, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, on December 31, 1895, voted the sum of $7,000. The committee selected Berthold Fernow as "Editor and Superintendent of the work "; in the autumn of 1897 the results appeared in seven octavo volumes as The Records of New Amsterdam (1653-1674), the volumes averaging 392 pages. The engrossed minutes of the Common Council from October 17, 1675, to May 9, 1831, comprise seventy-five folio volumes. Those contained in volumes 1 to 7 cover the period from October 17, 1675, to May 24, 1776. They were published in 1905 in eight octavo volumes, averaging 469 pages, under the authority of the City of New York and under the supervision of another committee named by Mayor Seth Low from the membership of the New York Historical Society, which had originally proposed the publication to the Mayor. On February 10, 1903, the Board of Aldermen, at Mayor Low's request, resolved that the committee already appointed by him should have charge of the work. Professor Herbert L. Osgood, of Columbia University, was chairman of this Mayor's Committee and the editing was done under his immediate supervision, with the assistance of Austin Baxter Keep. There are no minutes for the war period after May 24, 1776, or before February 10, 1784, except a few evidences of lost sessions preliminary to the last named date. The publication of the minutes of the Common Council from 1784 to 1831 has been urged for a long time by individuals and by historical societies interested in the preservation of the public records of this city, as they cover nearly the first half-century of the city's existence. |