Illustrated manuscript real estate ledger for New York, New Jersey, Colorado, Missouri, Illinois etc.
Ca. 1888–1894.
Folio (13 5/8” x 8 3/8”, 346mm x 212mm): 144 leaves, mechanically numbered 1-288 (written to p. 203, with graphite captions to p. 207) in blue ink to the upper fore-corner of each page; pp. 1-30 tabbed and mechanically lettered A-Z (no X) in blue ink. With 4 folding lithographed maps mounted, tipped or laid in.
De-cased, with the front board (half black sheep over pebbled cloth boards, gilt) present. Soiling to the end-papers (foxing to the second and third leaves), and throughout the tabs. Some folding and chipping to the peripheries. Tear to pp. 149-150, repaired in old clear tape verso. Many of the inserted maps creased and torn, with some losses. Some offsetting or ink-burn, but altogether quite clean internally. Graphite ownership signature of “Wm E. Davies” to the recto of the front end-paper, as well as that of “Isaac M Williams,/ Orange N J” in graphite manuscript and dated at the bottom “December 4.th 1888” in graphite manuscript.
The firm of Maclay and Davies (founded 1867) — with Major Isaac Walker Maclay and William E. Davies as principals — began as civil engineers and city surveyors in the closing third of the XIXc. In that capacity they are perhaps best known for their piers at Coney Island in Brooklyn and Long Branch Pier in Monmouth Co., NJ. In the course of this work the firm became real-estate developers, their holdings were initially concentrated in New York and New Jersey, but as the present manuscript ledger attests, by the late 1880’s and early 1890’s their holdings extended as far as Boulder, CO; St. Louis, MO, Jackson Co. MO and Selkirk, just outside of Winnipeg in Canada.
Major Maclay (1841–1908) was a fresh graduate of West Point who attended the performance at Ford’s Theater at which President Lincoln was shot. Per his obituary in the Yonkers Statesman (30 December 1908), Maclay was one of the group that carried the body of the president to Peterson House (now the Lincoln Museum) and laid him on the bed. He then went to bring Lincoln’s family physician to the bedside. Later in life he was assistant topographical engineer of the New York City Parks Department, from which position he resigned to become chief engineer of the Long Island Railroad.
The present ledger is remarkable for its 82 colored manuscript maps detailing the plots and parcels handled by the firm,[1] annotated with owners — many originally owned or held in the name of the principals’ wives, May Davies and Laura A. Maclay — mortgages, divisions, rents, liens and insurance. It is a record of the unparalleled ability in Gilded Age New York to amass wealth through property and development, perhaps the city’s greatest economic engine even still. Then as now, this sort of vast wealth was accompanied by some generosity; in 1896 Maclay and Davies gave the deed for the land in Closter (just north of Demarest in Bergen Co., NJ) to the group of descendants of freed slaves who would found the Centennial AME Zion Church.
[1] Brooklyn: Sackett St., Union St., Degraw St.; Bronx: Hunts Point; New York City: Lexington Ave., W. 68th St., W. 56th St., E. 123rd St., E. 114th St. at First Ave., W. 10th St. etc.; New York: Yonkers, Irvington, Pelhamdale, Pelham, Sing Sing (92 acres), Farmingdale; New Jersey: Demarest, Passaic, Newark, Westwood, Orange Heights, Ridgefield Township, Tenafly, Bergen Co., Springfield, Englewood, Closter, Rutherford, Mahwah, Plainfield, West Orange etc.; Boulder, Colorado; St. Louis and Jackson Co., Missouri; Riverside, Chicago, Illinois; Virginia; Selkirk (near Winnipeg), Manitoba, Canada.
Item #JLR0672
Price: $9,000