David T. Valentine and a cover from the second series of his manual, edited by Henry Collins Brown (image: gvshp.org)
The volumes in this series are officially titled The Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York, but commonly called “Valentine’s Manuals” for David T. Valentine, the clerk of the Common Council. Valentine was instructed to compile the volumes that included the city’s annual reports and directories. Valentine thus became the first person to preserve New York City’s records. The manuals were published from 1841/2 until Valentine’s death in 1866. There was no volume for 1867 and the following year, the manuals resumed publication for a few years under successive clerks—Joseph Shannon (1868 and 1869) and John Hardy (1870). Read the rest of this entry »