The first part identifies original grantees, persons awarded land in the area between 1739 and 1775, and provided is the date of award, name of grant, present town of grant's location, acreage, and grantee's name. The second part, and by far the largest, identifies about 9,000 landholders--grantees, grantors, mortgagees and mortgagors--whose land records were filed between 1772 and 1802 in the deed and mortgage books of Washington, Clinton, or Essex counties. In the various entries will be found the names of all persons engaged in land transactions, the date of the transaction, the place of residence of each of the principals, and the volume and page of the original source book.
An appendix furnishes the dates of organization of all of the towns formed in northeastern New York prior to 1803 and the population of these towns as of 1790 and 1800, and it lists by counties the numbers of deeds and mortgages filed in this region between 1772 and 1802.