Collections : [Rare Book & Manuscript Library]

The collection consists of addresses, press releases, memoranda proclamations, and other papers by and in regard to Charles Seymour Whitman (1868-1347) who was the District Attorney of New York County from 1910 to 1914 and Governor of New York State from 1915 to 1918. The material ranges in date from 1910 to 1937. The material is confined for the most part to drafts of the Governor's speeches to various groups on such subjects as the NEW YORK STATE PENAL CODE, unification of state laws, public health, education, and agriculture. Also, a typed memorandum on Whitman's ancestry and a few miscellaneous items. There are not papers or correspondence of a personal nature in the collection. The material is mostly in typescript. There is also a microfilm of Lt. Charles F. Becker's testimony in the Rosenthal murder case.

Correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, prints, and printed material relating to Tompkins and his family. The cataloged correspondence includes two letters while he was Governor, one from John Peter Van Ness, New York Congressman, and Tompkin's letter to Rev. Peter I. Van Pelt on the creation of a college on Staten Island. The manuscripts consist of Tompkin's Columbia College valedictory address, biographical and genealogical items. There are 5 portraits of Tompkins and his wife as well as cabinet photographs of the Governor's mansion in Albany

Twenty four volumes of the public papers and letter books of DeWitt Clinton. Volumes 1-15 contain letters written to DeWitt Clinton, 1785-1828. They are mounted with an average of 65 letters to a volume, or approximately 975 in all. Volumes 16-23 are letter books covering the years 1793-1828 and average 300 pages to the volume. Volume 24 contains miscellaneous papers, speeches, poems, and the like in various hands.

The papers relate chiefly to the business, financial, real estate, military, civic and personal activities of Nicholas Fish. There are letters from various military figures concerning army provisions during the Revolution, letters relating to lands given to Fish for his services during the war, twenty letters from various individuals to George Clinton (1739-1812), and ten letters to DeWitt Clinton. The Hamilton Fish letters deal with business matters of his father, Nicholas, after his death. There are a few personal letters from several family members and a diary of Nicholas Fish from 1784. The documents consist of real estate and financial matters of the family as well as various petitions on matters of a civic nature

Correspondence, memoranda, position papers, campaign materials, speeches, photographs, and printed materials relating primarily to Samuels' unsuccessful 1970 campaign for governor of New York. Included with the collection are campaign materials for other candidates, and campaign buttons for Samuels, Nelson A. Rockefeller, and others. Major correspondents include William Averell Harriman, Hubert Horatio Humphrey, LeRoi Jones, Edward I. Koch, John V. Lindsay, Robert Moses, and Edmund S. Muskie.

Five manuscripts, one map, and four books formerly belonging to various members of the Van Cortlandt family: New York (Colony) Laws, Statutes, etc. Lawes Establish'd by the Authority of his Majesties Letters Patents.. By virtue of a Commission from.. James Duke of Yorke.. 1664. This first set of laws for New York, commonly known as the "Duke's Laws" were promulgated by Governor Richard Nicolls, after a meeting with representatives in Hempstead, Long Island, on March 1, 1664. Bound with this code are nine additions most of which are "Orders made at the Generall Court of Assizes held in New York" 1664-1672. The texts are written in several different hands and signed variously by Richard Nicolls (1624-1672), first governor of New York, 1664-1668; Matthias Nicolls (1630?-1687), Richard's brother and secretary to the province during the period covered; and Francis Lovelace (1618?-1675?), brother of the poet Richard Lovelace and governor of New York, 1668-1673. Written copies of this code were prepared for all the towns on Long Island. Of these copies only four are apparently extant, including this one and one in the New York Historical Society.