Exhibit - Duty & Disaster
About the Exhibit
This exhibition presents images of some of the English colonial records from the historic 101 Box Collection of the Ulster County Clerk. The exhibit was originally held at the Loughran House of the Senate House Historic Site in Kingston New York. It was presented on the occasion of the third re-enactment of the burning of Kingston and Archives Week in New York State in October of 2000.
Several historical accounts of the events leading up to the British attack of October 16, 1777, mention the removal of public records to the town of Rochester for their safety and the role Christopher Tappen, Deputy County Clerk and others played in their removal. One can reasonably assume that the very existence of these records today is a direct result of those heroic acts. The Ulster County Clerk and the Ulster County Records Management Program take great pleasure in sponsoring this exhibit to honor the role Christopher Tappen played in protecting these records; to illustrate the County Clerk’s role in protecting public records; and to educate the public about colonial life, our program in general, and the valuable historical information that Ulster County archival records contain.
In deciding which records to choose, the date was obviously my first consideration. I also focused on records related to the towns the records passed through on route: Hurley; Marbletown; Rochester; and Kingston, itself. In addition, I looked for references to the King of England, the free and independent State of New York, and records that revealed the names and occupations of residents, as in the Grand Jury List from the Court of General Sessions. The facsimiles shown in the original exhibit were printed on Canson paper with a Hewlett Packard 2500C color printer from files created by digital photographs taken by John Lenz. Those files and their corresponding transcripts are presented here in this online exhibit.
-Ken Gray
Archival Processing Technician
