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was no doubt that citizens would "zealously join in advancing so beneficial an institution."

Next the investment idea-still a feature of the Library and destined so to be as long as it continues a corporation of shareholders-is delineated as follows: "Nothing is given away, but each right is an estate which the proprietor is laying up for his heirs, or which he may sell to whom he pleases, and which is gradually accumulating and becoming more and more valuable by the addition of ten shillings per annum from each proprietor." The notice ends with urging heirs or assigns of former proprietors to claim their “rights,” and with a renewed call for lost books, "known by the arms pasted in front."

One other topic touched upon in this announcement relates to a matter very near the hearts of New Yorkers at that time, namely, the hope of having their city chosen as permanent seat of the Federal Government. The bearing of the Library upon the question is thus explained: "Nor will it be thought a trifling motive to a speedy exertion, that a useful public Library will add to the inducement which Congress have to remain with us, and that the want of one has actually been advanced as one among other reasons for removing the general government from this city.'

In the meantime, also, application had been made to the local authorities for permission to reestablish the institution in its former accommodations. The request met with rather passive acquiescence on the part of the Common Council in a resolution of January 7, 1789, "that this Board have no Objection to the appropriation of the uppermost Room in the South East part of the City Hall to the use of the Society Library provided the

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Federal Hall, Wall Street, corner of Nassau, facing Broad Street

Home of the New York Society Library, 1789-1795. Site of present Sub-Treasury Building
On the balcony here shown General George Washington was inaugurated first
President of the United States, April 30, 1789

LIBRARY HOUSED IN FEDERAL HALL 209 same shall not be necessary for the accommodation of the Gen! Govt of the United States." This act on the part of the Corporation of the city was the more gracious since it no longer had a collection of its own to "be improved for the public advantage in like manner with the Books" of the Society Library.2

In preparation for the inauguration of the Constitutional experiment in New York, the City Hall had been elaborately altered and enlarged under direction of the French engineer and architect, Major Charles L'Enfant, and now, as Federal Hall, was to be ceremoniously handed over for the exclusive use of the new Government, the Common Council, legislature and courts arranging to hold sessions in the Exchange. Thus the Library would be the sole occupant of the building not in any way connected with the Federal administration.

Such a prospect was by no means forbidding to the men at the helm, to judge from a resolution at their next meeting, April 7th, at the City Hall, that Messrs. Verplanck and Greswold "apply to the Congress of the United States to know if they can spare the room in the City Hall which on those occasions has been assigned by the Corporation of this City for the purpose of depositing the Books belonging to this Corporation." There is no further allusion to the matter in the minutes, while the journals of Congress, fragmentary at best in those early days, are equally reticent, not so much as mentioning receipt of the petition.

All that can be definitely asserted, then, is that the petition must have been granted in some way, for it is a fact that the Library soon resumed its mission amid

1 Minutes of the Common Council (MS.), kept in the City Hall. 2 See p. 77.

familiar though improved surroundings. And certain it is that the Trustees met in the City Hall, as above quoted, even before presenting their memorial, though of course they had made no attempt to store any books there. Also, at the same time and place, they directed Secretary Bard to advertise the annual election "to be held at the City hall upon the last Tuesday in the present month."

Consequently there is the justifiable assumption that the petition was favorably received. In return for this courtesy, the privileges of membership were conferred upon the national legislators at the first session of Congress, as had been done by the Library Company of Philadelphia toward the members of the First Continental Congress in August, 1774. As yet Congress had no Library of its own, so it may be said with due regard to the verities, that the first Library of the Federal Congress of the United States was the New York Society Library!1

The last Tuesday of April, 1789, fell on the 28th, but two days before the memorable inauguration of General Washington as first President of the United States." Local papers were therefore too full of the incidents of that impressive ceremony and its attendant festivities, to devote any attention to the results of a simple Library election. The minutes make no mention of the meeting,

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