Judicial

The Court of Probates originated in the late seventeenth century as the British authorities established a centralized probate system in the colony. It declined in importence during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a decentralized probate system based on local courts evolved. During the period of Dutch administrations (ca. 1617-1664), wills were generally written out and read before the testator and two witnesses by a notary, ship captain, or magistrate. The will was signed by the testator, the witnesses, and the official, who recorded it in his record book.

A court of chancery existed in New York from 1683 to 1847. Patterned after the English Court of Chancery, which traced its origins back to medieval jurisprudence, the Chancery court dealt with matters of equity rather than law. The English system of equity emerged during the late Middle Ages in response to several defects in the rigidly prescriptive English common law. Litigants sought to redress the defects in the common law through the Chancellor, the King's chief legal advisor and head of the Chancery (the government's writing office).