Item #23882 John Jay & George Clinton: disputed 1792 NY Gubernatorial election, legislator tally including three disqualified counties of Tioga, Otsego & Clinton. New York State politics, John Lefferts.
John Jay & George Clinton: disputed 1792 NY Gubernatorial election, legislator tally including three disqualified counties of Tioga, Otsego & Clinton.

John Jay & George Clinton: disputed 1792 NY Gubernatorial election, legislator tally including three disqualified counties of Tioga, Otsego & Clinton.

New York: April 10, 1792. WRONG! A manuscript tally of the 20 existing New York counties legislators, written up and dated April 10th 1792, just 2 days before the highly controversial gubernatorial election between George Clinton and John Jay took place.

The tally was most likely made by the John Lefferts (1785 - 1829), who served as representative for New York in the 1st congressional district from 1813 to 1815; he defeated his kinsman Leffert Lefferts for this post. Lefferts was also a member of the 13th US Congress, and was a delegate to the NY State Constitutional Convention of 1821. He was a member of the NY state Senate from 1820 to 1825.

Lefferts' manuscript tally lists all the counties in New York and the number of legislators in each. In the gubernatorial election of 1792, although Jay received more votes than Clinton, a canvass committee ultimately decided in favor of Clinton by disqualifying the votes of 3 counties, Otsego, Tioga and Clinton counties. These 3 counties, whose votes were tossed out, are recorded in this tally.

The tally records the number of towns in each county and the number of legislators, followed by another chart providing the length of each respective term: Members of the Assembly -1, Senators "of this state" -4, Governor & Lieutenant Governor - 3, Representatives in Congress -2, "2 Senators from each state"-4, "President and Vice President -4."

At the upper right is a separate record of amounts to "pay to the commissioners for repairing the roads", denominated in pounds, for the western, eastern, middle and southern districts, with a grand total of 20,000 pounds! This was the period in which toll roads were built to stimulate commerce and settlement; since funds and administrative resources were in short supply many private companies built and operated toll roads.

On the verso, in different period handwriting, is a record of payment signed by James Week[s?], from John Lefferts, for cloth and items of clothing, dated New York 16th November 179[2?].

At the left margin, in the same handwriting as on the verso with the county legislator tally, is a note which reads, "Buggery, Rape, Murder, Forgery> Felony, Death by the Law".

7 1/2 x 7", period folds flattened, short closed split at left side lowest fold. Very good condition. Item #23882

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