Series I: Goldsboro Banyar

This subseries includes royal appointments of office to George Clarke, Senior (as Secretary of the province of New York) and to Goldsboro Banyar (as Clerk of the Court of Chancery), along with a deputation from George Clarke, Junior appointing Banyar Deputy Secretary of the province. The royal appointments are elaborate vellum documents with hand ornamentation and original seals still attached. Also included is a 1774 report to Governor William Tryon with information on the number of mines in the province, and its population (including a breakdown of whites and blacks), militia and government.

Auditor's Office correspondence with auditors Thomas Smith, Horatio Walpole and Robert Cholmondeley relates to the collection of quit-rents, payment of salaries and other matters concerning the official accounts of New York.

Also included are Banyar's drafts of decisions issued on motions and cases heard in Chancery Court. The Chancery Court was originally conceived as one that could rule on issues of fairness, and was not restricted to statutory law. Cases typically involved estate and business disputes, the resolution of land disputes, and divorce and other family matters, such as the appointment of a guardian for a minor. One case involved appointment of a committee to take care of a person "in a state of lunacy."

There are also two bound volumes of minutes of Council proceedings relating to land transactions, spanning a two-year period from 1770 to 1772, and a list of wills filed in the Prerogative Office from 1769 to 1771.

This subseries includes account books and loose accounts and receipts of court fees, monies relating to land transactions, and military expenses. Also included is an exchange note for 100 pounds sterling to recruit members of the Five Nations of Indians for a war against Canada, and a license and receipt for the purchase of land from Native Americans.

This sub-series is arranged chronologically. Subseries I.3A, Colonial-era correspondence, consists primarily of Banyar's correspondence with George and Edward Clarke relating to administrative and financial matters. Matters discussed include Banyar's efforts to collect quit rents and salary owing to Clarke, his dispute with Archibald Kennedy, Receiver-General, about payment of Clarke's allowances and Clarke's right to the office of Register of the Prerogative Court, reports on the military and political situation in New York, frontier troubles, Indian problems and the war with the French. Other correspondents include Sir William Johnson and William Knox. A folder of general correspondence includes a 1763 letter discussing Thomas Stephens, the son of the Secretary of Georgia, and his inability to get "negroes" for the manufacture of potash.

Subseries I.3B consists of post-Revolutionary correspondence, mostly dealing with business matters including the sale of lands, accounts, debts, suits, and stock purchases. Correspondence between Banyar and his son-in-law, Jacob LeRoy, includes personal observations on the outbreak of fever in Philadelphia and New York, and the inoculation of his children.

This subseries includes Goldsboro Banyar's private account books and notebooks of business transactions. There are also volumes with thermometer readings and daily weather notes.

This subseries consists mainly of legal documents for the acquisition and conveyance of real property, including Letters Patent (civil and military) and their supporting documents, deeds (generally using the English system of Lease and Release), mortgages, and bankruptcy indentures. Also included are other papers relating to property and estates, such as tenant leases, bonds, surveys, and maps. Most date from two periods: 1761-1775, and the 1790's. The conveyances record Banyar's personal land transactions as well as his legal business with clients, in New York City and Albany, and in upstate New York.

The majority of the documents are Letters Patent (most with original seals attached) or conveyances and papers relating to them. The Letters Patent, civilian and military, were issued to individuals or, more commonly, to groups, limited in non-military cases to 1000 acres per person but containing totals up to 50,000 acres -- moderate-sized grants compared to those of the 17th or early 18th centuries but substantial nonetheless. Parties to these indentures include many political and business leaders of the pre-Revolutionary era, such as Robert Livingston, John Tabor Kempe, John Morin Scott, Oliver Delancey, John Watts, Peter Van Schaack, James Duane, Alexander Colden, Governor William Tryon, and John Harris Cruger. Some of the post-Revolutionary transactions involve William Cooper, Henry Beekman, and William Lawrence.

Many of the records relate to New York land grants in Vermont. Often accompanied by papers proving titles, they involve property located in the area East of the Hudson River, then disputed by New Hampshire which later became parts of the state of Vermont. A Commission was established to adjudicate the competing claims, and New York agreed in 1790 to relinquish title to lands in Vermont in return for $30,000.

The transactions in this subseries illustrate the practices used to accumulate land for speculation, and in some cases give histories of particular lots or parcels in New York City and Albany. There are also many items relating to the military bounties authorized by the Proclamation of October 7, 1763.

The descriptions in the box and folder list are based on a calendar of the items prepared in the 1970's, which also provides additional background information. This calendar has been included in Box 9A of the collection and is listed at the end of this subseries.

This subseries contains accounts and receipts reflecting Banyar's land transactions, quitrents, land surveys, bonds and mortgage obligations, stock transactions, wheat sales, tax receipts, and purchases of household goods and services. Also included are papers relating to the purchase of Banyar's Pearl Street residence in Albany.

This subseries includes bond and mortgage indentures, powers of attorney, decrees, orders, and various other legal documents relating to Banyar's personal and business affairs. Of particular interest is a bill of sale and manumissions papers for a slave. Also included are wills and estate papers of Banyar and other family members. In addition there are wills of other people connected to the family, including Lawrence Reade, who leaves an interesting bequest to Mary Barron, a "free mulatto woman in the Island of Jamaica," and her three children Sara Reade, Lawrence Reade and Ann Reade.