Abraham Yates, Jr. papers

1604-1825 [bulk 1754-1795] D

Abraham Yates, Jr. (1724-1796) was an American lawyer, politician, and pamphleteer. He held numerous elected offices and political appointments throughout his life including sheriff of Albany city and county from 1754 to 1759, chairman of the Albany Committee of Correspondence from 1774 to 1776, member of the New York Provincial Congress from 1775 to 1777 and its chairman in 1776 and 1777, New York state senator from 1777 to 1790, delegate for New York to the Congress of the Confederation in 1787 and 1788, and mayor of Albany from 1790 to 1796. Like his nephew, jurist Robert Yates, he was an active revolutionary patriot and Anti-Federalist. As pamphleteers they shared the pen-name, The Rough Hewer. Collection, dated 1754-1825, consists of correspondence, writings, speeches, notes, estate papers, and printed matter pertaining to the activities of Abraham Yates as a political figure in New York State, his legal practice and private financial matters, and his family. Correspondence, dated 1754-1825, contains incoming and outgoing letters and drafts of letters. Writings, notes, and speeches contain essays he wrote on the United States Constitution, notes on proceedings in Congress, speeches to the delegates to Congress in 1786, The Rough Hewer manuscript, and notes for histories of New York and Albany. Also included are papers relating to the Manor of Rensselaerwyck and the Albany Committee of Correspondence, land and family records, photograph of a painting of Yates, and other items such as broadsides and a legal treatise by Thomas Wentworth printed in London in 1663.