Columbia Library columns (v.7(1957Nov-1958May))

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  v.7,no.3(1958:May): Page 20  



2 0                                Richard B. Morris

Salzer Collection has probably the largest number of such suits
to be found anywhere. It should be added that as a result of
Hamilton's indefatigable efforts the legislature at long last re¬
pealed the Trespass Act.

The whole range of the city's crafts and craftsmen is exposed
to the researcher among the Salzer Papers. Carpenters, coopers,
and turners sued in the Mayor's Court to recover for their serv¬
ices. For example, as early as 17 lo New York appears to have
had an armourer named William Brown, involved here as a liti¬
gant. Everardus Bogardus, the silversmith, manages to get in and
out of court as a litigant on several occasions. Silks and spices,
beer, rum and London porter, wines and Cheshire cheese, Hol¬
land duck and canvas, oil paints, window glass, and sealing wax,
castor hats, leather and skins and "fat oxen and fat Iambs," and
countless other items, lean as well as fat, are the subject of liti¬
gation in these papers. Of special interest and utility to students
of the household arts and crafts are the inventories and lists of
household furnishings included among these papers. In 1711
Roger Brett placed in the safekeeping of Gyles Shelley an in¬
teresting collection of gold, silver, and pewter items. When in
1785 Mason Wattles found difficulty meeting his rent, Edward
Agar attached all his house furnishings to the value of £100 cur¬
rent money of New York and including a chest of drawers, eight
mahogany chairs, and two mahogany bedsteads. It goes without
saying that these articles would bring a lot fancier prices in to¬
day's market—if the Winterthur Museum has not already acquired
them!
  v.7,no.3(1958:May): Page 20