Found 2 collections related to Manuscript maps

William H. Vanderbilt (1821-1885) was a wealthy American businessman who expanded the railroad system created by his father Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1887). The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company was formed in 1869 with the merger of two Vanderbilt-controlled companies, the New York Central Railroad Company and the Hudson River Railroad Company. The manuscript (1 volume, 360 pages, partially blank, with tipped-in index and maps) is a comprehensive abstract of title of properties acquired by William H. Vanderbilt and the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company during the years 1878 to 1880, on the upper west side of Manhattan. The area encompassed 65th to 72nd Streets, between Eleventh (West End) Avenue and the westerly line of the City of New York in the Hudson River. The abstract addresses the City's title to soil under the Hudson River, associated with titles to adjacent upland properties originating in the Somarindyke, Harsen, and Boggs estates. Supporting records include abstracted colonial charters, deeds and other conveyances, wills, and court proceedings, as well as cadastral survey maps and street diagrams. The manuscript, written in a clerical hand, was probably prepared by a New York City law firm. less

Adam W. Spies (1800-1891), the son of Mary Bergh and John Spies, was a hardware and military goods merchant in New York City. He was employed by the firm of C. & J. D. Wolfe, and was their agent in England in the 1820s. In 1834 he established A. W. Spies & Company, later Spies, Kissam & Company, retiring in 1866. He acquired extensive landholdings in New York City, upstate New York, and numerous other states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, and Wisconsin, among others. In 1832 he married Sarah Ann Morrison (d. 1883), daughter of John C. Morrison of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Spies was a founding member of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor.The Adam W. Spies real estate and genealogy scrapbook is primarily a record of his real estate transactions, containing numerous manuscript plat maps, many in watercolor with extensive annotations; a few printed maps; listings of properties, taxes and assessments; and legal notes. Holdings in Manhattan and Williamsburg, Brooklyn are especially well documented. Genealogical materials include charts and notes concerning the Spies, Morrison, and Bergh families, and autobiographical accounts, with advice to grandchildren, recalling his career, his service as a volunteer fireman, and life in Manhattan prior to the building of the Erie Canal and Croton Aqueduct. The volume also contains pasted clippings, certificates and receipts, cut silhouettes of Spies, and a few sketches, notably a watercolor street view by Spies of his father’s place of business in Manhattan as depicted in 1808. There are some miscellaneous letters and notes relating to family and real estate matters, some loose, including a genealogical inquiry to his son-in-law John W. Cochrane dated 1907. A few of Spies’s genealogical entries are updated to 1930. The scrapbook has multiple and duplicate paginations, with gaps: Index, p. 1-48, 50-58, [3 p.]; property maps with index, p. 0-100; and additional genealogical and autobiographical material, p. 133-143; 137-138, 139 (2 leaves), 142-155. Text and maps are separately indexed. less