Posted by request.

--Moderator, NYHIST-L

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The research team at Hyde Hall in Cooperstown, the state's least-known  
and best documented National Historic Landmark and New York State  
Historic Site (see website, in need of post-season updating, but  
generally very good) is used to having most questions answered by our  
incredible archive (materials from 1704 until 1966, the full range of  
Clarke family history in New York, fully indexed, housed by Cornell  
University Kroch Special Collections Library) has drawn a frustrating  
blank:

The late 1880s bankruptcy proceedings against George Hyde Clarke,  
involving property liens and debts of over $1 million -- among the, if  
not the, largest bankruptcy in the country to date (that's what we've  
heard, per contemporary newspaper reports, but haven't figured out how  
to confirm)-- must be documented in some courts archive, but we can't  
figure out where. The properties were scattered throughout Central New  
York and down into the Hudson Valley, but his lawyers were in Utica  
and Cooperstown; Oneida and Otsego counties claim not to have the  
records.

Anybody have any idea where we should look next? Anyone want to help  
us explore this? We have a mix of excellent and determinedly diligent  
volunteers working on this, led by the chief of our seasonal  
interpretive staff, Larry Smith.

Please post to the list, or reply to [log in to unmask] with  
questions, information or comments.

And if you haven't been here lately, come to Hyde Hall next time you  
get a chance -- LOTS of new fantastic "new" (original to house, from  
the too-long-stored collections) things on exhibit as the restoration  
nears completion. Tell the guys at the Park Gate (enter through  
Glimmerglass State Park) that you are heading up to Hyde Hall, and  
they will not charge the beach/campground admission fee.

Thanks very much.

Alice Smith Duncan
Hyde Hall executive director