NEW HARLEM VILLAGE, 1765, VIEWED FROM MORRISANIA. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH STREET NOW MARKS THE SITE OF THE VILLAGE,-RANDALL'S ISLAND ON LEFT. (From a copy, made for Mr. George H. Moore, Librarian of the New York Historical Society, of an original drawing in the British Museum.) PAST AND PRESENT The Story of an Amazing Civic Wrong, BY CARL HORTON PIERCE. WITH A REVIEW OF THE PRINCIPLES OF LAW INVOLVED IN THE TH PREFACE. HE purpose with which this book has been prepared is suggested by its sub-title. The volume has been written to prove that the Town of New Harlem has not been effectively erased from the map; that there is not only a "past" but a "present" New Harlem; that the most extraordinary civic injustice in the history of the American commonwealth is at last to stand, stripped of its giant's robe, before the tribunal of American law. It is difficult to state, in even moderate terms, the titanic dimensions of the enterprise of which this book forms a part, without the appearance of sensationalism. It is not possible to question the status of the title to nearly half of Manhattan Island, in the heart of the greatest city of the Western Hemisphere, without seeming to seek notoriety. The challenge scarcely has a precedent in the history of the world. But neither the obstacles which preceded, nor those which are likely to result from this challenge, can modify the determination of those who have set themselves to right a great wrong by exploiting the truth. And truth was never compassed with greater difficulty, with more disheartening drawbacks, or in the face of more emphatic predictions of failure. To vindicate the rights of the Town of New Harlem some seventy years after its last recorded meetings were held; to restore to the descendants of its incorporators the land given to their forefathers, and held by those forefathers through pioneer perils and hardships, is a task requiring unusual courage and resources. The coming of this issue was prepared by events. New |