Manual of the Common Council of New-York 1862

Title

Manual of the Common Council of New-York 1862

Description

Manual of New York with 1 folding map and 42 chromolithography views. Full brown embossed leather with gilt spine and cover. Old New York map showing Dutch activities in the East Village. Illustrations complete according to the "Index to the Illustrations in the Manuals of the Corporation of the City of New York", The "Manuals of the Corporation" were directories of extensive historical and contemporary records of New York compiled by D.T. Valentine. These books contain detailed information on City Council meetings, ordinances passed, public officials, the city's debts, directories of hospitals, almshouses, and schools, ferry schedules, lists of public carriers, demographic and census information, and descriptions of historic buildings and streets. Much of the information comes from Dutch and English sources edited by Valentine. Notable illustrations in this edition include "New York, c. 1790."

c. 1856

Artist

Valentine's Manual/Hayward (1801-1869)

David T. (Thomas) Valentine (1801 - 1869) served as the Clerk of the Common Council of New York City. He edited and published a series of New York City almanacs and fact books entitled Manual of the Corporation Of The City of New York. Valentine's Manual, as it came to be called, included facts about the City of New York, city council information, city history, and reported on the progress of public works such as Central Park. The production of this annual manual was the responsibility of the Clerk of the City of New York, a position held at different times by D. Valentine and by Joseph Shannon, who also produced a similar manual. Valentine used his manual to reproduce some of the rarest and most important maps of New York City ever created.

Historical Description

Under the discovery of Americans, we understand the first sighting of the continent by seafarers from the global civilization. Around 1000, the Vikings established a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland, now known as L'Anse aux Meadows. Speculations exist about other Old World discoveries of the New World, but none of these are generally or completely accepted by most scholars. Spain sponsored a major exploration led by Italian explorer Christopher Columbus in 1492; it quickly led to extensive European colonization of the Americas. The Europeans brought Old World diseases which are thought to have caused catastrophic epidemics and a huge decrease of the native population. Columbus came at a time in which many technical developments in sailing techniques and communication made it possible to report his voyages easily and to spread word of them throughout Europe. It was also a time of growing religious, imperial and economic rivalries that led to a competition for the establishment of colonies. The formation of sovereign states in the New World began with the United States Declaration of Independence of 1776. The American Revolutionary War lasted through the period of the Siege of Yorktown — its last major campaign — in the early autumn of 1781, with peace being achieved in 1783. The Spanish colonies won their independence in the first quarter of the 19th century, in the Spanish American wars of independence. Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín, among others, led their independence struggle. Although Bolivar attempted to keep the Spanish-speaking parts of Latin America politically allied, they rapidly became independent of one another as well, and several further wars were fought, such as the Paraguayan War and the War of the Pacific. (See Latin American integration.) In the Portuguese colony Dom Pedro I (also Pedro IV of Portugal), son of the Portuguese king Dom João VI, proclaimed the country's independence in 1822 and became Brazil's first Emperor. This was peacefully accepted by the crown in Portugal, upon compensation.