The History of Court of Common Pleas, Also Known as the Mayor's Court
The New York City Mayor's Court, also known as the Court of Common Pleas, was established in 1664'. In approximately 1699, the Mayor's Court moved from the Dutch Stadhuis, built half a century earlier, to its new home in City Hall at the intersection of Wall and Broad Streets. Also housed here were the New York City office of the Supreme Court of Judicature and, in the basement, the municipal jail.
Under the terms of the Montgomerie Charter, reaffirmed by the 1777 state constitution, the Court of Common Pleas was presided over by the mayor himself.] The mayor, recorder, and aldermen or any combination of the three comprised the bench of the court. By 1786, New York City's population had grown from 12,000 at the end of the Revolutionary War to 23,000. Manhattan was growing physically as well as in number: geographically, Manhattan began to expand northward. The governing of New York City had become a large operation, leaving the mayor little time to preside over the court. "The business of the city became so pressing that the mayor and aldermen soon abandoned the court to the recorder and confined their activities to matters of administration and law-making. The volume of litigation in the mayor's court rapidly increased. 254 writs [orders issued from a court requiring the performance of a specific act"] were returned for the term of February 6, 1799, for example, as the population of the city had almost trebled since the termination of the war. Two years previously a statute had been passed empowering mayor and recorder, or either of them, to hold court without the presence of any of the aldermen, who were still permitted to attend, however:" The recorder was a high-ranking magistrate of the court." Beginning in 1797, minor civil cases were decided by justices of the peace. The recorder presided over the courts of general and special sessions, assisted by two common fleas judges. Beginning in 1798, arraignments and bail were handled by police justices. According to Burrows and Wallace, "The mayor and aldermen ... drew back slowly but surely from the exercise of their judicial functions, giving rise to a de facto separation of powers. Under De Witt Clinton [elected mayor in 1803], the jurisdictional reach and number of meetings of the Mayor's Court increased steadily, forcing him to turn its proceedings over to the recorder."
It was not customary during the colonial period for judges to hail from the legal profession. Instead, members of the merchant class often became judges. A "dearth of available legal talent" and low salaries discouraged young lawyers from seeking judgeships. Although most of New York City's mayors during this period were merchants, many had studied the law. The position of recorder, though, usually went to someone with a legal background. As Morris states, "The recorder, however, was the real measure of whatever special training was considered necessary for administering justice in those days. He was legal adviser to both court and council," but most of his job consisted of advising the court. "In addition to his judicial duties, the recorder acted as corporation counsel, ... he was always selected from the ranks of the legal profession, was generally an Anglican, and very often in close contact with the provincial government" 10 However, according to Burrows and Wallace, "In 1801, the legal responsibilities of the recorder were transferred to a new official, the corporation attorney." During this period the court clerk normally kept custody of the books of record.
The New York City Mayor's Court was New York city's version of a lower level, or "town," court. Four justices of the peace were appointed to each town in the state of New York. (After 1826, they were elected to the position.) "Each justice was empowered to preside alone over a civil court, which tried personal actions involving demands for $50 or less .... Civil actions involving slander, assault and battery, or recovery of real or personal property could not be brought in this court, no matter what the amount of damages claimed." These types of cases were tried in the Supreme Court of Judicature or the county court of common pleas, "The justice of the peace kept a docket of cases and sent transcripts of judgments for more than $25 to the county clerk, whose filing of the same created a lien upon the judgment debtor's real estate."
History of the Supreme Court
On May 6,1691, the New York Assembly passed an act establishing a Supreme Court of Judicature, the colony's highest court of common law, with both original and appellate jurisdiction, This court exercised original jurisdiction over major criminal cases, civil actions where the amount demanded was more than twenty pounds, and all actions concerning title to real property. However, the Supreme Court did not have exclusive jurisdiction over these types of cases; all cases could also be tried in the county courts, as the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction included all the lower courts, Proceedings were transferred from the lower courts, such as the Mayor's Court, to the Supreme Court by writs of error, habeas corpus, certiorari, and by warrant. Most civil cases were tried in the counties in a circuit court. 15
Adopted in 1777, Article 35 of New York's first Constitution continued the colonial system of courts and practice "largely unchanged.':" New York State's Supreme Court of Judicature was still the State's largest court of law possessing original jurisdiction, Article 35 did, however, among other actions, remove the name of King George III from court writs and guarantee the right to trial by jury, Other changes included those in Article 32, which set up a Court for the Trial of Impeachments and Correction of Errors which "reviewed cases brought up by writ of error from the Supreme Court and by appeal from the Court of Chancery." 17
According to "Duely & Constantly Kept, " by the New York State Court of Appeals and the New York State Archives and Records Administration, "A writ of error was obtained by a defendant to remove the judgment of an inferior court of record to the Supreme Court of Judicature for review, when the proceedings showed 'manifest error' in law, Most of the cases reviewed on writ of error came up from the county level court of common pleas. The Supreme Court also reviewed civil judgments of the New York City mayor's court....The writ of error was a sealed order of the Supreme Court...commanding a lower court to return the record of pleadings, proceedings, and judgment. Usually the original defendant was the plaintiff in error."l8 The Supreme Court reviewed numerous cases appealed from the county-level civil and criminal courts by writs of error.19
The Supreme Court had five justices, including a chief justice, who traveled on a circuit. 20 The court held its terms in Albany until 1783 when, following British evacuation, its seat moved back to New York City.21
All records of court business were maintained by official clerks. 22 "All judgments in civil cases tried either in the circuit courts or the Supreme Court terms were signed and filed by the clerk of the Supreme Court in New York City." 23 Until 1797, there was only one clerk of the Supreme Court; that clerk's office was in New York City,24 housed in City Hall. 25 A second clerk's office was opened in Albany in 1797. 26 According to "Duely & Constantly Kept, " "Supreme Court clerks were' usually prominent attorneys, and several were former or future Supreme Court justices. It is likely that deputy clerks and assistants were responsible for the day-to-day work of entering rules and filing papers. The clerks had a great mass of papers to deal with." 27
The Archives of the New York County Clerk's office holds the records of the Supreme Court that were filed by the clerk at New York City as well as almost all the surviving records of the colonial supreme court." Most of the extant records of the Supreme Court offices in upstate New York are preserved in the New York State Archives. The New York Historical Society holds the Supreme Court minute books for 1693-1704. The County Clerk's office holds circuit court minute books and Court of Oyer and Terminer minute books as well as indictment papers. Due to court orders and statutes authorizing the destruction of specific types of Supreme Court records, many of the records prior to 1847 no longer exist. 29 This collection of documents held by the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society most likely contains copies of records that were held by the lawyers' offices.
Historical Background on Debtors and Debtors' Prisons
War between Britain and France in 1760 brought on a depression in New York, creating a large new class of debtors. "Before 1760 there had never been more than sixteen actions against debtors in any given year; by 1763 there were forty-six; by 1766, eighty. So many debtors were locked up in the recently completed New Gaol (conveniently located in the Common next to the almshouse) that it was already being called the debtors' prison." 30 Here, incarcerated debtors were expected to pay for their own food, clothing, and fuel.31
By 1787, "Over five hundred debtors were arrested in New York County every year. By posting a bond with the sheriff, those with means could be released to live within prescribed 'gaol limits'. Those without means, rarely fewer than a hundred at a time, .were locked up and required by law to supply their own necessaries. Conditions in the prison verged on the nightmarish." 32
Warrants issued for their arrest stated that debtors were being imprisoned "according to the act entitled an act for the relief of debtors with respect to the imprisonment of their persons." 33 According to "Duely & Constantly Kept," Supreme Court documents relating to a debtor's case would typically include a petition by creditors for attachment of debtor's property, itemizing his debts, and a warrant to the sheriff to attach the debtor's property." This seems to hold true in regard to this collection of legal documents, as it contains several itemized promissory notes as well as warrants stating that the debtor was "bound" to the sheriff for the specified amount of money.
The "action of debt" was a form of action used in the Supreme Court of Judicature. According to "Duely & Constantly Kept, " "This action was brought to recover a certain, or liquidated, sum of money owed by one person to another. An action of debt was usually founded on a specialty, or a sealed contract for payment of a specific amount of money. Examples of specialties were bonds, articles of agreement, leases, and mortgages. The action could be founded on a judicial record, such as a judgment roll or a recognizance of bail. Infrequently, an action of debt concerned an unsealed contract for goods or services, a promissory note, a bill of exchange, or a banker's draft. Finally, the action of debt was the designated remedy for certain violations of statute."35 The formula that was used in a plaintiffs declaration usually read "Plea that (defendant) render unto (plaintiff) the sum of (dollars)". 36
Relevant Published Histories, Biographies, and Reference Sources
Abbott New York Digest, vol. 2. St. Paul, MN: West Publishers, 1929, vii-xvi.
Colden Letter Books, 1765-1775, vol. 2. New York: New-York Historical Society, 1877.(N.Y. GIO)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Family History Library. Research Outline: New York. Salt Lake City, Utah: Family History Library. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 1988. (N.Y. G 12.805)
Daly, Charles P. "History of the Court of Common Pleas for the City and County of New York..." in Smith's Common Pleas Reports, vol. I. New York: J.R. Halstead, 1855.
Graham, David, Jr. A Treatise on the Organization and Jurisdiction 0/the Courts 0/Law and Equity, in the State of New-York. New York: Halsted and Voorhies, 1839.
Hamlin, Paul M. and Charles E. Baker. Supreme Court 0/Judicature of the Province 0/ New York, 1691-1704 in Collections of the New-York Historical Society/or the Year 1945. New York: New York Historical Society, 1952. (N.Y. G 10 V. 78-80)
Kross, Anna M. and Harold M. Grossman. "Magistrates' Courts of the City of New York: History and Organization," Brooklyn Law Review, 7 (1937),133-79.
Lincoln, Charles V. The Constitutional History 0/New York. Rochester, NY: Lawyers Co-operative Publishers, 1906.
McAdam, David, ed. History of the Bench and Bar of New York. New York: New York History Company, 1897. (N.Y. G 174.8)
Morris, Richard B., ed. Select Cases a/the Mayor's Court of New York City, 1674-1784. Washington, D.C: American Historical Association, 1935. (N.Y.C. G87.1)
Scott, Kenneth. New York City Court Records, 1760-1797: Genealogical Data from the Court of Quarter Sessions. Washington, D.C.: National Genealogical Society, 1983.(N.Y. G12.41 V. 2)
Scott, Kenneth. New York City Court Records, 1797-1801: Genealogical Data from the Court of General Sessions. Arlington, VA: National Genealogical Society, 1988. (N.Y. G12.41 V. 2)
Scott, Kenneth. New York City Court Records, 1801-1804: Genealogical Data from the Court of General Sessions. Arlington, VA: National Genealogical Society, 1988. (N.Y. G12.41 V. 2)
Werner, Edgar A. Civil List and Constitutional History of the Colony and State of New York. Albany: Weed, Parsons & Co., 1884. (N.Y. G31)