St Francis Xavier (1847, Roman Catholic), in New York City; College of the City of New York (1849, city); University of Rochester (1850, Baptist), at Rochester; Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (1854, non-sectarian), at Brooklyn; Niagara University (1856, Roman Catholic), at Niagara Falls; St Lawrence University (1858, non-sectarian), at Canton; St Bonaventure’s College (1859, Roman Catholic), at St Bonaventure; St Stephen’s College (1860, Protestant Episcopal), at Annandale; Manhattan College (1863, Roman Catholic), at New York City; St John’s College (1870, Roman Catholic), at Brooklyn; Canisius College (1870, Roman Catholic), at Buffalo; Syracuse University (1871, Methodist Episcopal), at Syracuse; Adelphi College (1896, non-sectarian), at Brooklyn; and Clarkson School of Technology (1896, non-sectarian), at Potsdam. The United States Military Academy (1802) is at West Point.
Finance.—In New York the direct property tax is levied by and for the benefit of localities. Revenues for state purposes are derived from special taxes collected from the liquor traffic, corporations, transfers of decedents’ estates, transfers of shares of stock, recording tax on mortgages, sales of products of state institutions, fees of public officers including fines and penalties, interest on deposits of state funds, refunds from department examinations and revenue from investments of trust funds, the most important of which are the common school fund and the United States deposit fund. A board of three tax commissioners has supervision of methods of assessment within the state, and with the commissioners of the land office constitutes the state board of equalization. The county supervisors, with or without the aid of three commissioners whom they are authorized to appoint for the purpose, constitute a county board of equalization. The recording tax on mortgages, amounting to one-half of 1% of the principal sums secured, is collected by the recording officers under the supervision of the state board of tax commissioners. The administration of the liquor tax law is under the supervision of the state commissioner of excise and his deputies. The tax on corporations, originating as a capital stock tax in 1880 and extended through succeeding years, is administered by the state comptroller. The comptroller also has charge of the enforcement of the stock transfer tax act and of the laws imposing taxes upon the transfer of decedents’ estates. The aggregate of taxes received by the state treasury through the comptroller’s department for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1909, was $23,000,000.
On the 30th of September 1909 the state debt, most of which was created since 1895 for the purpose of canal improvements, amounted to $41,230,660. The surplus in the treasury was $8,435,848, the total amount in trust and sinking funds was $31,301,501. The constitution prohibits the legislature from lending the state’s credit or incurring an indebtedness for current expenses in excess of $1,000,000 or incurring any indebtedness whatever, other than for war purposes, unless such indebtedness be authorized by law for “some single work or object,” the law to be approved by the people at a general election and providing for a direct annual tax sufficient to pay the interest and to liquidate the debt within eighteen years. That instrument further prohibits each county, city, town and village from lending its credit and from creating an indebtedness in excess of 10% of the assessed valuation of its real estate.
The first state institution to receive a bank charter was the bank of New York, incorporated in 1791. In 1804 free banking was restricted to such an extent as to give practically a monopoly of the business to associations receiving special charters, and as these charters were generally awarded as favours to politicians the system was a formidable agency of corruption. Chiefly because of these evils the constitution of 1821 required the assent of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the legislature to pass an act creating a corporation. In 1829 the Safety-Fund Act was passed, which required each bank thereafter chartered or rechartered to pay into the state treasury 3% of its capital stock other than that owned by the state, and from this fund the debts of insolvent banks were to be paid. The fund became exhausted by many failures, and a free banking law was enacted in 1838. The constitution of 1846 prohibited the legislature from granting any special charters for banking purposes, and consequently no more safety-fund banks were established. At the same time the free-banking system has been greatly improved. The state banks still have the right to issue currency, but the heavy tax on currency issue imposed by Congress in 1866 (after the introduction of the National banking system in 1863) put a stop to the practice. In 1851 a state banking department was created, and at the head of this is a superintendent of banks appointed by the governor, with the consent of the Senate, for a term of three years. The superintendent—or examiners appointed by him (from a civil service list)—is required to examine every bank and every trust company at least twice each year, each building and loan association at least once a year, and every savings bank at least once in two years. The law provides specifically as to the investment of deposits made in savings banks with the evident purpose of providing the greatest possible security to depositors. State banks must carry from 15% to 25% reserve and trust companies from 10% to 15% reserve, depending upon location.
The introduction of the National banking system caused a decrease in the number of state banks from 309 in 1863 to 45 in 1868, but their number has increased steadily since 1880 and in 1909 there were 202. In the same year there were 140 savings-banks, 85 trust companies, 46 safe deposit companies, 255 building and loan associations and other miscellaneous corporations, with total resources of $3,833,500,000 under the supervision of the banking department of the state. This is over 21% of the entire banking power of the United States.
To correct abuses in the life insurance business which were discovered in 1905 by a committee of the state legislature, laws were passed in the next year regulating the election of the directors of the insurance companies, and the investments of the companies and the distribution of dividends, limiting the amount of business of the larger companies and prohibiting rebates on insurance premiums. A state superintendent of insurance, (since 1860) appointed by the governor, holds office for three years.
History.—The aboriginal inhabitants of New York had an important influence on its colonial history. Within its limits from the upper Hudson westward to the Genesee river was the home of that powerful confederacy of Indian tribes, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas, known to the French as the Iroquois and to the English as the Five (later Six) Nations. When supplied with firearms by Europeans they reduced a number of other tribes to subjection and extended their dominion over most of the territory from the St Lawrence to the Tennessee and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. They were at the height of their power about 1700. Of much less influence in New York were several Algonquian tribes in the lower valley of the Hudson and along the sea coast.
New York Bay and the Hudson river were discovered by Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524, and were probably seen by Estevan Gomez in 1525; for many years following French vessels occasionally ascended the Hudson to trade with the Indians. The history of New York really begins, however, in 1609. In July of that year Samuel de Champlain discovered the lake which bears his name and on its shores led his Algonquian Indian allies against the Iroquois, thus provoking against his countrymen the hostility of a people who for years were to hold the balance of power between the English and the French in America. On the 3rd of September Henry Hudson, in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, entered New York Bay in the “Half Moon” in search of the “northwest passage.” He conceived that a vast trade with the Iroquois for furs might be established; his report aroused great interest in Holland; and the United Netherlands, whose independence had been acknowledged in the spring, claimed the newly discovered country. In 1610 a vessel was despatched with merchandise suitable for traffic with the Indians, the voyage resulted in profit, and a lucrative trade in peltry sprang up. Early in 1614 Adriaen Block explored Long Island Sound and discovered Block Island. The merchants of Amsterdam and Hoorn soon formed themselves into the New Netherland Company, and on the 11th of October 1614 received from the States-General a three years’ monopoly of the Dutch fur trade in New Netherland, i.e. that part of America between New France and Virginia, or between latitudes 40° and 45° N. Late in the same year or early in 1615 a stockaded trading post called Fort Nassau was erected on Castle Island, now within the limits of Albany, and a few huts were erected about this time or earlier on the southern extremity of Manhattan Island; but no effort at colonization was as yet made. In 1617 the Dutch negotiated with the Iroquois a treaty of peace and alliance. Fort Nassau was soon removed to the mouth of Tawasentha Creek. On the expiration of the charter of the New Netherland Company (1618) the States-General refused to grant a renewal, and only private ventures were authorized until 1621, when the West India Company (q.v.) was chartered for a term of twenty-four years; to this company was given a monopoly of Dutch trade with the whole American coast from Newfoundland to the Straits of Magellan. It was authorized to plant colonies and to govern them under a very limited supervision of the States-General, such as the approval of its appointment of a governor and of its instructions to him; and its own government was vested in five chambers of directors and an executive board or college of nineteen delegates from those chambers, eight of the nineteen representing the Chamber of Amsterdam. New Netherland became one of the more important interests of the Company. In June 1623, however, New Netherland was formally erected into a province and the management of its affairs assigned to the Chamber of
