ENTERED ACCORDING TO THE Act of ConGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1879, BY EDWARD FLOYD DE LANCEY, IN THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, AT WASHINGTON, FOR THE SOCIETY. TROW'S NEW YORK. ADVERTISEMENT. "THE JOHN D. JONES FUND SERIES" has been so named by the New York Historical Society in honor of their enlightened and generous fellow-member, John Divine Jones, whose great interest in the history of his native State has led him to endow the Society with a fund of six thousand dollars for publishing works of an historical nature which may not fall within the scope of its ordinary "Publication Fund." The object of the Series is fully set forth in the Plan and Declaration of Trust on which the Society formally accepted the gift of the Fund for its establishment. It is to print, publish, and sell, under the direction of the Publication Committee of the Society: First, Such manuscript historical and biographical writings, memoirs, documents and records, private or public, official or not official, ecclesiastical or secular, civil or military, which shall relate to, or illustrate, the history of New York as a Colony or a State; or the history of any of the Dutch, English, or French, colonies in America, and which shall have been written prior to the year 1800. Second, Such historical works or documents relating to the history of New York, or that of the United States, or of either of them, which shall treat of, or relate to, events or persons, which shall have happened, or who shall have died, at least fifty years prior to the publication of the same. Third, That the cost of the volumes be paid out of the Fund; the volumes so printed to be sold under the direction of the Publication Committee; and when the proceeds have been received, the same to be employed in the printing of other volumes, which in their turn are to be sold, and thus permanently to continue the issue of the Series. Fourth, That under no circumstances shall any new volume or volumes be put to press until the proceeds of the sales of the preceding volume or volumes shall be in the possession of the Society, to an amount which shall in the judgment of the Executive Committee be equal to the cost of producing such new volume or volumes. ILLUSTRATIONS. 1. FORT NECK HOUSE, QUEENS COUNTY, LONG ISLAND, THE AUTHOR'S SEAT, 2. INTERIOR OF THE GREAT HALL OF FORT Neck House, 3. FIRST MAP OF THE UNITED STATES AS ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE PEACE OF 1783, 4. MAP OF THE DE LANCEY BOWERY FARM, IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK, AS IT WAS AT THE TIME OF THE REVOLUTION, page 313 page 559 EXPLANATION OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS. THE Author's seat, Fort Neck House, Queens County, the view of which faces the title-page, was built in 1770. It was erected for him by his father, Judge David Jones. It faces the great South Bay, and has a frontage of ninety feet. It is solidly built of hewn timbers, upon a foundation of Rhode Island freestone, and is finished on the outside with long cedar shingles, painted, renewed but once since first erected. The great entrance hall, of which an interior view is also given, is thirty-six feet long by twenty-three wide, floored with heavy polished southern pine. Over the door leading from it to the staircase and to the dining-room are still a pair of enormous elk horns, presented to the Author by his warm friend Sir William Johnson, Baronet, who shot the animal on his own domain, on the Mohawk. The stairs of this house are a puzzle to modern architects, as they are open underneath from bottom to top, and have no support except from the wall to which they are attached, and yet have never yielded a particle in the lapse of more than a century of continued use. The first map of the United States, according to the Peace of 1783, is a reproduction of a copy which was brought from Europe after the Peace, by Chief Justice John Jay. The editor's maternal grandfather, the late Peter Jay Munro, of New York, a nephew of John Jay, accompanied his uncle to Spain and to France, was with him at the time of the Negotiation of the Peace, and returned with him to New York, a youth in his eighteenth year, in July, 1784. The Chief Justice brought out some copies of this map of the new nation, and from one of them, which descended to the editor from his grandfather, this reproduction has been made. It will be seen from its date, that it was published five months before the definitive treaty was signed, which was on September 3d, 1783, and over ten before the 14th of January, 1784, when it was ratified by Congress. The Map of the de Lancey Farm, between the Bowery and the East River, in the City of New York, is a copy two-thirds the size of the original manuscript map in the editor's possession. It is a matter of local interest, as denoting how much was built up at the time of the Revolution, and in connection with the official document in the note to which it is annexed shows many of the occupants of that part of the city at that time, as well as the subsequent purchasers from the Commissioners of Forfeitures. It belonged to James de Lancey, the then owner of the estate (the eldest son of Lieutenant-Governor James de Lancey), a greatuncle of the editor, in whose possession the original map now is. |