Beschreibung:

A collection of six large manuscript maps documenting early surveying and settlement of land in present day Ulster and Greene Counties, New York.
New York: 1804-1839. 1) A map of several tracts to the north of Batavia and the vacant lands of James Cockburn 1803. (540 x 750 mm). 2) A Map of a Tract of Land on the Northerly Side of the Schohary Kill in the Great or Hardenbergh Patent … Surveyed and Run into Lots in the Month of July AD 1786, Taken from and compared with the original in the hands of Oliver Day for John Kiersted … 1812. (540 x 750 mm). 3) Hardenbergh, 1808. (901 x 1816 mm). 4) A Map of the West Half of Great Lot No. 24, Hardenbergh Patent. (444 x 1575 mm). 5) Sundrie Settlements made by Purchasers under the Van Bergen Patent, 1805. (610 x 1841 mm). 6) A Map of the State Land Tract [Be]tween Cadeskill and [Ba]tavia …, 1834. (641 x 1816 mm). an interesting record of the 'patroonships" of upstate new york, including the rensselaer tracts. The settlement by the Dutch of New Amsterdam in the 17th century led to large estates being offered to farmers in exchange for emigration. The lands ownership became effectively a feudal grant of up to 16 miles of riverfront, extending back into the wilderness as far as could be effectively settled. The settlements largely failed, with the exception of the the lands owned by the Van Rennselaer family. By 1775, the only substantial change was that the Dutch families who had the original grants were joined by those that the English Colonial govenment wished to reward, again with large land tracts, both becoming in effect absentee landlords, demanding payment from the tenants who settled. Tensions were high between landlord and tenant following the Revolution, when farmers sought to throw the yoke of a Dutch grant given nearly two centuries before, or to labour under the tenancy of a landowner rewarded for being a Royalist. The Antirent Wars of the 1840's made important changes to what was a feudal system.