According to Joyce Goodfriend’s “Before the Melting Pot” (1994): “Religious persuasion may also have influenced the marriage choices of British immigrants to New York City. Wait, but Pearl Street does not touch the water? Well, it once did. In fact, it was the original eastern shoreline of the lower part of Manhattan Island, until the latter half of the 18th century when landfill over the course of several hundred years has extended the shoreline roughly 700–900 feet further into the East River, first to Water Street and later to Front Street.īesides affording a lesson in early Manhattan geography, if not urban planning, it also gives insight into early immigrant communities. It conveys a water lot of Peter Sinclair, a mariner on the south side of Pearl Street. This recently purchased 1694 New York deed is not in the high value category of Indian deeds, but it is of scholarly interest. For example, a deed to Mohawk land at Schenectady, New York to Johannis Vedder, signed by 3 Mohawks with their totem signatures, recently got $18,000 at a rare book auction. Still, any old deed should be properly evaluated as some can fetch substantial sums. Surprisingly, most have very little monetary value in the market unless they are signed by important people, are particularly early, or can shed some light on an interesting household. I am often offered vellum deeds or asked how much they are worth.

They are also quite attractive, filled with meticulous calligraphy and generally remain a very neglected area of collecting. They are often large sheets of particularly sturdy parchment that have escaped the ravages of time that destroy a lot of other early paper counterparts and ephemera. Title and land deeds survive in abundance.

Old manuscript