Excerpt from The Charter and by-Laws of the New York Historical Society: Revised January, 1858; With the Amendments and a List of Resident Members Whereas, the persons hereinafter named, and others, have formed themselves into an association under the name of The new-york Historical Society, for the purpose of discovering, procuring, and preserving whatever may relate to the natural, civil, literary, and ecclesiastical history of the United States in general, and of this State in particular, and have presented a petition to the Legislature to be incor porated, that thereby such, the purpose and design of the said Society, may be the more effectually subserved and promoted. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.