Sharp's bequest, in 1700, to the City of New York

The first Free Town Library formed upon the territory which is now comprised within the United States of America was founded at New York, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The founder was the Rev. John Sharp, who, for some years, had been chaplain to Richard, Earl of Bellamont, Governor of the then Province of New York. Mr. Sharp bequeathed his books as the foundation of a Public Library for the city, and for maintenance as a municipal institution.

The first recorded addition to Sharp's bequest came to New York as the gift of the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, about thirty years after the date of that bequest. This also was the library of an English clergyman–Dr. Millington, Rector of Newington, in the county of Surrey. The collector had given it to the Society by his last Will, in order that the governing body might make such a disposal of the library as should seem to them most productive of public advantage. The society gave it to the Municipal Corporation of New York, “for the use of the clergy and gentlemen of that City, and of the neighbouring Province.”

It happened, however, that within a very few years of this second gift, the Library which had thus been augmented fell into a state of neglect. In their estimate of the importance of public appliances for intellectual culture the founders of the New York City Library were, at that time, far in advance of those whom they desired to benefit, and for a period of almost a quarter of a century the gift was little appreciated or turned to profit.