EXTRACTS FROM THE RECORDS

CHATHAM

COLUMBIA COUNTY

NEW YORK

By Capt. Franklin Ellis³⁰⁰

1878

     1801 - "June ye 6th.  Last night a frost remarkable for posterity to read of.

     1825 -  A special meeting was held Jan. 29, to consider the propriety of forming a new county, to be composed of the northern towns of Columbia and the southern towns of Rensselaer counties.  A motion favorable to the movement was carried by a large majority, and the following were appointed a committee to confer with other committees upon the matter:  Isaac Mills, Thomas Hoag, Richard S. Peck, Archibald Campbell, George Bain, and James Sutherland.

     In this connection, it will not prove uninteresting to note some records bearing upon the institution of slavery in Chatham.  In 1800, Peter Van Slyck certified that a negro child, born of a slave-woman belonging to him, etc.  Entries of slave-births were also made the same year and the years following by John I. Miller, Mathew Dorr, Elsie Fisher, Jacob Van Hoesen, Daniel Troop, Josiah Richmond, Samuel Wilbor, Abraham Van Alstyne, and Hosea Bebee.  Most of these afterwards recorded the birth of negro children in whom they did not desire to maintain the right of property.  Samuel Brockway manumitted his slaves, June 28, 1808; and Samuel Wilbor and Jesse Stevens theirs a few months later.  Some of these negroes remained in town, and became very useful citizens.

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