[787] [Dr. O’Callaghan made the translations from the Dutch and French, and had the general superintendence. Brodhead prepared the Introduction, giving the history of the records. Brodhead made his first report on his work in 1845 (Senate Documents, no. 47, of 1845), after he had arranged and indexed his eighty volumes, also in an address before the New York Historical Society, 1844, printed in their Proceedings. This led to the arranging and binding of two hundred volumes of the domestic archives, which had been in disorder. The eighty volumes above named were divided thus:—
Sixteen, 1603-1678, obtained in Holland; forty-seven, 1614-1678, procured in England; seventeen, 1631-1763, secured in Paris. Brodhead’s New York, i. 759; Westminster Review, new series, iii. 607.
Asher, Essay, p. xlviii, says of Brodhead’s mission: “We must, however, regret that, tied down by his instructions, he took a somewhat narrow view of his search, and purposely omitted from his collection a vast store of documents bearing on the history of the West India Company.”
The documents as published were divided thus: Vol. i. Holland documents, 1603-1656. Vol. ii. Ibid., 1657-1678. Vol. iii. London documents, 1614-1692. Vol. iv. Ibid., 1693-1706. Vol. v. Ibid., 1707-1733. Vol. vi. Ibid., 1734-1755. Vol. vii. Ibid., 1756-1767. Vol. viii. Ibid., 1768-1782. Vol. ix. Paris documents, 1631-1744. Vol. x. Ibid., 1745-1774.
In the Introduction to vol. iii. Mr. Brodhead gives an account of the condition of the English State-Paper Office in 1843.—Ed.]
[788] [The discourse (1847) of C. F. Hoffman on “The Pioneers of New York,” institutes a comparison with the Pilgrims of Plymouth. Mr. Fernow’s paper in the Mag. of Amer. Hist., v. 214, discusses the claims of the Dutch to be considered as having educated people among them, and the various legislative acts indicating their tolerant spirit are enumerated in Historical Magazine, iii. 312.
See Dr. De Witt’s paper on the origin of the early settlers in N. Y. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1847, p. 72. Various notices of the early families are scattered through O’Callaghan’s notes to his New Netherland, and embodied in the local histories; but genealogy has never been so favorite a study in New York as in New England.—Ed.]
[789] N. Y. Coll. MSS., xxxv. 162.
[790] Governor Ingoldsby to Lords of Trade, July 5, 1709: “I am well informed that when the Dutch took this place from us, several books of records of patents and other things were lost.”—N. Y. Coll. Doc’s, v. 83.
[791] [Calendar of Historical MSS. in the Secretary of State’s Office (Dutch), 1630-1664, Albany, 1865; and Ibid. (English), 1664-1776, Albany, 1866. On p. ix of the last is given a list of the papers and volumes formerly in the offices of the Secretary of State and Comptroller, now in the State Library. There was also printed at Albany, in 1864, a Calendar of the New York Colonial MSS. and Land Papers, 1643-1803, in the Secretary of State’s office.—Ed.]