The Annual Register of the State of New York is an excellent resource for people researching ancestors who lived in New York. In this edition, published in 1831, nearly everything you need to know about the State of New York can be found. Among these old pages, you'll find New York's Congressional Districts, Census demographics, names of clergymen by location, practicing physicians and surgeons, government officials, judges, military personnel, vessels of war, West Point cadets, United States Governors, coins minted, rates of duties and imports, medical institutions, table of roads, newspapers, and much more. It even includes "Lines of the Packet Boats on the Erie Canal". It is interesting to note that a trip from Rochester to Buffalo, 93 miles, took 24 hours in a packet boat on the Erie Canal. Perhaps this little tidbit relates to my long lost ancestor, Charles Russell Leonard. Did he travel on one of these packet boats when he went missing?
On page 327, we find that the National Debt of the country in 1831 was 39.1 million dollars or an average of $4.50 per person. On page 333, an informative table shows the population of each state along with the number of slaves. There were a total of 37 slaves in all of New England (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island & Connecticut) and 100 in New York. In the entire country, there were 2,011,320 slaves, 339,360 free colored persons, and almost 10.5 million whites. On page 334, a list of all the Native American tribes in the U.S. is given, along with their location, population, and acres of land. There were 69 tribes, with 129,266 members, and they owned 77.4 million acres of land. That's an average of 599 acres per person.
This time line of the principle events that occurred in New York from 1609 to 1814 might prove helpful in your genealogy hunt. [Source]
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