Friday, January 14, 2022

New York State History Tidbits

 


 

Researching New York ancestors? Did you know this?

In 1663 an ordinance was passed prohibiting the bringing of Quakers into the Province of New Netherlands?

In 1638 there were tobacco plantations on Manhattan Island?

On the 1855 census, the New York population was 3,466,212 with 3,420,926 whites and 45,286 blacks and “1847 Indians.”

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants crossed into New York from Canada without their names ever appearing on any U.S. government records. These immigrants consisted chiefly of Irish and German with a large number of English, Scotch (sic) and Norwegians. The greater part of the immigrants either located in the cities or immediately passed on to the wild lands of the West.  

In 1838 district public libraries were established and from then on to 1851 an annual sum of $55,000 was appropriated for the purchase of books for these libraries. The books were generally comprised of scientific and literary subjects and afforded people the means to obtain information which would otherwise be unobtainable.

Under an act passed in 1782, two lots of 200 acres each was to be set aside for schools in each township.

In 1857 there were 2016 prisoners in Sing Sing (named after a nearby village). There were both male and female cells and also an asylum for Insane Convicts.

(I gleaned these bits from the book, Historical and Statistical Gazetteer of New York State, 1866.)

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