LEGAL AND JUDICIAL

NEW YORK COUNTY

Until the close of the colonial period. New York City, so
far as its courts were concerned, was to all intents and purposes
New York Colony. It was the seat of government, and the
colonial as well as the early State courts were located in the
metropolis. Its lesser courts were similar in character to those
of the other counties which were organized with itself under the
first State Constitution. In 1797, however, Albany was made the
capital of the State in place of New York. The seat of the State
courts was transferred up the Hudson, and from that time on the
city and county of New York became in legal affairs simply on a
par with the other counties of the State. The titular legal and
judicial supremacy which it had enjoyed from the time the Dutch
first settled at the tip end of Manhattan was taken from it.

The courts that remained peculiarly to the county, continued
from the colonial period were: the surrogate, the presiding
officers of which under the first constitution were appointed by
the council of appointment, and under the second constitution by
the governor and senate, and became elective under the constitu¬
tion of 1846; and the court of common pleas, the great historic
court of the colonial epoch. The history of the last mentioned
court has been presented in full in the first volume of this work.

Toward the close of the first quarter of the century the
calendars of the supreme court and the court of common pleas
of New York City became congested with business. Heavy bank
failures and other commercial troubles were before the courts in
such volume that it required more than a year, as a rule, to reach
a trial. To cope with this situation the superior court of the city
was established by act of the legislature in 1828. To the new
court was given the same jurisdiction as was possessed by the
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