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The New ����app ����app Archives and the Archives Partnership Trust have received a $125,760 “Save America’s Treasures” grant from the National Park Service and the Institute of Museum and Library Services for the conservation and digitization of historical court records and other important documents of the Revolutionary War era. The documents are eligible for the grant because of their national significance and their poor and fragile condition. Upon the completion of the grant project, which begins November 1, the documents will be conserved, digitized and placed online on the for research use.

The court records in the ����app Archives that will be conserved at a professional laboratory include over 400 pages of indictments of Loyalists (American colonists who stayed loyal to the British Crown during the Revolutionary War) and Supreme Court minutes for 1775-1783 (both royal and state courts). Other documents to be conserved are fire-damaged minutes and papers of the royal governor and council in New ����app City (1776-1783) in the ����app Archives and loyalty oaths to the Crown during the war and military enlistment papers, held by the New ����app ����app Library.

“With more than 250 million documents in its collection, the ����app Archives is an important steward of New ����app’s history,” said Board of Regents Chancellor Betty A. Rosa. “We are grateful to the National Park Service and the Institute of Museum and Library Services for this grant that will help conserve important documents of New ����app’s Revolutionary War era history. Once these documents are conserved and digitized, I encourage students, scholars and educators to use these records to learn about an important chapter of New ����app’s early history.”

“Thanks to this Save America’s Treasures grant, the ����app Archives will conserve and digitize these vitally important records that may tell untold stories of the Revolutionary War era,” said ����app Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia. “This treasure trove of documents will soon be available for researchers and scholars to study and discover stories from New ����app’s early days as a colony in the 1700s.”

“We are proud to receive this Save America’s Treasures grant, which will enable us to preserve and make available extremely fragile, but remarkably important documents from New ����app’s Revolutionary War period,” said ����app Archivist Thomas Ruller. “The records will be a critically valuable resource for scholars and anyone who is interested in New ����app during the Revolutionary War.”

“As the ����app Archives’ non-profit partner, we are pleased to help build support for special preservation projects,” said Stephen Pagano, Board Chair of the New ����app ����app Archives Partnership Trust. “We are grateful to our donors and the New ����app ����app Organization of the Daughters of the American Revolution for providing seed funding to begin our efforts to preserve these great documents, which helped us to secure this Save America’s Treasures grant. We are committed to continue to assist the ����app Archives preservation efforts and to increase support for and awareness of the entire collection.”��

The grant project title, “Enemies of the ����app: Rediscovering the Patriot-Loyalist Struggle in Revolutionary New ����app,” alludes to the 1779 statute that authorized prosecution in the Supreme Court of Judicature of “Enemies of this ����app,” on the charge of treason. New ����app was a pivotal state during the American Revolution, militarily and politically. The court and other records to be conserved contain detailed but unutilized information about the state’s vigorous proceedings against suspected Loyalists, and about the royal government’s continuing operations in New ����app City until the end of the war.

Archival records of New ����app’s Unified Court System contain unique information about court operations and caseloads, trends in civil litigation and criminal prosecution, changes in civil and criminal procedure, the decisions of judges, the practices of trial attorneys, the rights and status of persons, and the overall impact of the courts on New ����app’s society since the seventeenth century. These records often provide the only documentation of ordinary people, including those who were marginalized, especially in the colonial and early national periods.

Many historical records of New ����app’s courts have been lost over time. An important success in preserving a major collection of those that survive, including the records that will be conserved under this grant project, occurred in early 2017, when nearly 2,000 cubic feet of records of the Supreme Court of Judicature and the Court of Chancery were transferred from the New ����app County Clerk’s Office to the New ����app ����app Archives in Albany. These records joined nearly 5,000 cubic feet of records from upstate court offices that were transferred to the ����app Archives in 1982, thereby creating a complete, statewide resource of historical court records dating from 1683 to 1847.������

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation's libraries and museums. It advances, supports, and empowers America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. Its vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit the and follow the Institute on and .

The New ����app ����app Archives is a program of the ����app Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Archives is open Monday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on legal holidays. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-8955 or .