Lists of people’s possessions when they died—pretty dry stuff, right? Well, the files in the Municipal Archives’ collection of estate assets from 1786 to 1859 may be brittle with age, but the glimpses they offer into Manhattan life from the era of George Washington’s presidency through the runup to the Civil War are hardly dull. Remarkably rich with detail, these records simultaneously remind us of how different—and yet how familiar—New York City life was 200 years ago.

A winding road back to 31 Chambers Street

The estate records came from the files of the New York County Surrogate’s Court. Generally known as Probate Court, New York is one of only two states that uses the name Surrogate’s Court for the courts that handle the disposition of estates (and orphans). When the head of a household died, the court assigned appraisers to visit the decedent’s home, make a room-by-room list of all possessions, and assign a monetary value to each item. From chamber pot to bank stock, from 25 cents of old lumber to a bear-skin great coat and from “1 six pence 1652” to a copy of Gardner’s Lectures on Steam Engines—it was all written down, attested to by the appraisers, and countersigned by the estate’s executors. The sale or distribution of the assets, by terms of a will or by the decision of the Surrogate, was a separate process from the creation of the asset lists.

These 11,000 records took a circuitous route from the Surrogate’s Court record room on the fifth floor of 31 Chambers Street to their current home in the Municipal Archives. In the 1970s, history professor Leo Herskowitz added the records to his “Historic Documents Collection,” at Queens College. Upon his retirement, he transferred the records to the Queens Borough Public Library. They were finally reclaimed by the Municipal Archives in the early 1990s.

The estate files illuminate so many aspects of New York life during the first century of the republic that it’s hard to summarize their historic value concisely. Instead, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of five hypothetical scholars studying different themes and see how these records might bear upon their research.

This week, For the Record looks at the themes Material culture: the personal possessions of New Yorkers and Investment choices in early America.  Next week, in Part Two, the themes of Enslaved people in New York City, Tools of the trade: artisans and shopkeepers, and Booksellers and personal libraries, will be examined.

Material culture: the personal possessions of New Yorkers

What goods were available in Manhattan shops 200 years ago, and what did New Yorkers buy? Items offered for sale can be found in the estate assets of deceased businessmen and shopkeepers, which often included detailed lists of the contents of their shops or factories. And regardless of age or occupation, most estate inventories listed personal possessions—often to extraordinary levels of detail—for the poor, the wealthy, and everyone in between.

A rare example where we have images of a large house in Upper Manhattan, as well as a detailed description of its contents, is in the estate record of John Clendening (1752-1836), a wealthy importer with a mansion at what is now Columbus Avenue around West 104th Street. Clendening’s home survived until the early 20th century. His estate inventory provides a room-by-room list of furnishings from the original owner of a large house dating to the earliest decades of the republic.

The furnishings are impressive more for their completeness and the way they can evoke a bygone era than for their elegance or value: parlor items include an easy chair, “old plated candle sticks,” and a “Mahogany Side Board (old).” 

A remarkable estate of a different sort was that of James Tredwell, from 1808. Tredwell’s assets consisted of the most modest of household goods, none valued at more than a dollar or two each. Yet the heading of his inventory record tells us that James Tredwell was “a blackman,” and that he owned “One half of a house at the head of Jews Alley.” The city directory for 1804 confirms that James Tredwell, laborer, lived at Gibb’s Alley (also known as Jews Alley and the home of the Portuguese Synagogue; later called Mill Street and now part of South William Street). The story of how a Black New Yorker acquired property in the heart of the city decades before slavery was outlawed in the state is a worthy scholarly topic.

Perhaps no more vivid example can be found of how our era differs from the century when these estate records were created than the brief inventory of the estate of Robert Barnes from 1828. Barnes owned household furniture appraised at just $10, a horse and wagon worth $72, and a house valued at $200 at the corner of 6th Avenue and 8th Street. But his assets also included a cellar of ice valued at $550, more than twice the value of his house! The inventory was made in May, so the ice had survived the warmth of Spring and was ready to be monetized for its cooling potential in the summer of 1828.

There were still farms on Manhattan Island in the 1820s. Samson Benson, heir to a farm in what is now Harlem and the upper reaches of Central Park, owned an array of farming implements, animals and produce: wagons, ploughs and harrows, a sorrel horse, three cows, and “6 fat hogs,” and quantities of buckwheat, potatoes, and oats. He also owned an oyster rake, evocative of the brackish water that still flowed nearby.

Investment choices in early America

Investing money to make more money was certainly an option available to New York City residents of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The portfolios of wealthy New Yorkers as revealed in their estate appraisals included stocks and bonds, but these tended to be for a narrow set of industries compared to today’s stock market offerings. Those who could afford to often invested in transportation infrastructure: turnpike companies, canal companies, and railroads. Insurance companies and bank stocks were also common, but periodic financial crises and the lack of a Federal Reserve to step in meant that many estate records list bank stocks with an annotation such as “bank failed” or “of doubtful value.” Direct and sizeable person-to-person loans were very common, often with real estate as the collateral. Interest rates of 6-7% were typical in the 1820s-1850s.

Janet Barlas owned shares in banks, canal companies, insurance companies, and The Manhattan Company. The latter was the holding company founded in 1799 by Aaron Burr and an all-star lineup of investors, nominally to provide a reliable water supply to Manhattan but in reality to circumvent Alexander Hamilton’s banking monopoly. The Manhattan Company still exists—its current incarnation is JP Morgan Chase.

Some financial assets that look like curiosities to contemporary eyes appear in these estate inventories. For example, appraisers of the 1836 estate of Gurdon S. Mumford, who had been private secretary to Benjamin Franklin and a United States congressman but later fell on hard times, listed only two assets: certificates entitling Mumford to proceeds from the “French Indemnity” and the “Neapolitan Indemnity.” These artifacts of maritime history emerged from the taking of American ships and the property of U.S. citizens in the early 19th century during disputes with France and with the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, respectively. If you don’t remember any such wars from your history classes, you’re not alone. These were quasi-wars as American naval power was tested by European kingdoms. When the disputes were eventually settled, indemnifying payments were agreed upon and apparently U.S. citizens could either place claims, or make investments based on the scheduled payments, which came in installments over a period of years.

New York City’s role as a center of the maritime industry appears in many contexts in estate records, from the modest possessions of sailors who died at sea to shares of ships. For example, at his death in 1809 Eliab Burgis’s net worth consisted entirely of his share in four sailing ships.

Readers are welcome to explore the updated collection inventory in the Collection Guide. Next week, in Part Two, For the Record will explore the themes of Enslaved people in New York City, Tools of the trade: artisans and shopkeepers, and Booksellers and personal libraries that can be explored in the collection.