Re copyrights and US District Courts:

May I suggest Dan W. write to the Clerk of the present US District Court of
the Southern District that encompasses Bronx, New York, Dutchess, Orange,
Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan and Westchester Counties?

There's a White Plaines address: 300 Quarropas St., White Plains, NY 10601.
There's a Manhattan address: 500 Pearl St., New York, NY 10007

To oversimplify, the District Court is a kind of initial intake court,
sometimes the first step up the ladder leading, several rungs later, to the
US Supreme Court.

Originally, US copyright claims were recorded by Clerks of US District
Courts.  Not until 1870 were copyright functions centralized in the Library
of Congress under the direction of the then Librarian of Congress Ainsworth
Rand Spofford.  The Copyright Office became a separate department of the
Library of Congress in 1897.

Tom McCarthy
general secretary
New York Correction History Society
http://www.correctionhistory.org


In a message dated 10/19/99 10:19:46 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

> Hello all:
>          I recently purchased a cute little pocket dictionary (published in
>  Cazenovia, of course!) that was
>
>  "Entered according to an Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by S.H. Henry &
>  Co., in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District
>  of New York."
>
>  What was the function of this court?
>  Was this a NY City or Central/Upstate NY court (F.F. Ripley, NY, made the
>  stereotype)
>  Where would the records of this court be found?
>