Washington County, NY Book of Forfeitures, 1784

The Book of Forfeitures is located in the Washington County Archives, Washington County Clerk’s Office, Fort Edward, NY. It contains the list and description of Loyalist properties that were seized and sold. The names given here are the purchasers of the properties.

The property of loyalists was seized and sold to fill New York State coffers when funds began to run dry during the Revolutionary War. A series of laws passed by the New York Provincial Congress and the Congress of the United States provided for this sequestration, and later confiscation, of forfeited loyalist property. The Commissioners of Forfeitures ceased operation on September 1, 1788, by an act of March 21, 1788. They had sold nearly all the tracts of land entrusted to them, raising large amounts of revenue for the state of New York.

Article V of the peace treaty signed by Britain and the United States in Paris on September 3, 1783, insists on “the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated belonging to real British subjects” and to noncombatant loyalists. Tories who fought the United States were to be given one year to reclaim their property and leave the country. Payments were to be made to loyalists whose estates had already been sold. Article VI prohibited any future confiscations. Many citizens of New York, however, still harbored strong resentment against the loyalists, leading the Provincial Congress to effectively nullify the Treaty of Paris of 1783 by an act of May 12, 1784.

This act authorized “the speedy sale of the confiscated estates,” writes Yoshpe, “…[it] systematized the confiscatory machinery and gave it impetus.” The Governor was ordered to appoint two Commissioners of Forfeitures for the Southern District. The abstracts in the Commissioners of Forfeitures from Washington County Proceedings describe sales after the act of May 12, 1784. ¹⁾Ross Liemer. Proceedings of the Commissioners of Forfeiture Summary, 2003.