AN ACT to legalize the adoption of minor children by adult persons.

SECTION 1. Adoption, as provided for in this act, is the legal act whereby an adult person takes a minor into the relation of child, and thereby aquires the rights and incurs the responsibilities of parent in respect to such minor.
SEC 2. Any minor child may be adopted by any adult, in the cases and subject to the rules prescribed in this act.
SEC 3. A married man, not lawfully separated from his wife, cannot adopt a child without the consent of his wife; and a married woman, not lawfully separated from her husband, cannot adopt a child without the consent of her husband.
SEC 4. The consent of a child, if over the age of twelve years, is necessary to its adoption.
SEC 5. Except in the cases provided for in the next section, a legitimate child cannot be adopted without the consent of its parents, if living, or the survivor, if one is dead; nor an illegitimate child without the consent of its mother, if she is living.
SEC 6. The consent provided for by the last section is not necessary from a father or mother deprived of civil rights, or adjudged guilty of adultery or cruelty, and who is, for either cause, divorced; or is adjudged to be an insane person or an habitual drunkard, or is judicially deprived of the custody of the child on acount of cruelty or neglect.
SEC 7. When the child to be adopted has neither father nor mother living, or whose consent, if living, is made unnecessary by the provisions in the last section, such consent must be given by an adult person having the lawful custody of the child.
SEC 8. The person adopting a child, and the child adopted, and the other persons whose consent is necessary, shall appear before the county judge of the county in which the person adopting resides, and the necessary consent shall thereupon be signed, and an agreement be executed by the person adopting, to the effect that the child shall be adopted and treated, in all respects, as his own lawful child should be treated.
SEC 9. The judge shall examine all persons appearing before him pursuant to the last section, each separately, and, if satisfied that the moral and temporal interests of the child will be promoted by the adoption, he shall make an order in which shall be set forth, at length, the reasons for such order, directing that the child shall thenceforth be regarded and treated, in all respects, as the child of the person adopting.
SEC 10. A child, when adopted, shall take the name of the person adopting, and the two thenceforth shall sustain toward each other the legal relationship of parent and child, and have all the rights and be subject to all the duties of that relation, excepting the right of inheritance, except that as respects the passing and limitations over of real and personal property, under and by deeds, conveyances, wills, devises and trusts, said child adopted shall not be deemed to sustain the legal relation of child to the person so adopting.
SEC 11. Whenever a parent has abandoned or shall abandon an infant child such parent shall be deemed to have forfeited all claim that he or she would otherwise have, as to the custody of said child or otherwise, against any person who has taken, adopted and assumed the maintenance of such child; and in such case the person so adopting, taking and assuming the maintenance of such child may adopt it under the provisions of this act, with the same effect as if the consent of such parents had been obtained. In all cases of abandonment after this act takes effect the person adopting shall proceed under the provisions of this act within six months after he or she has assumed the maintenance of such child; in such case of abandonment, the county judge may make the order provided for in this act without the consent of such parent or parents.
SEC 12. The parents of an adopted child are, from the time of the adoption, relieved from all parental duties toward, and of all responsibility for, the child so adopted, and have no rights over it.
SEC 13. Nothing herein contained shall prevent proof of the adoption of any child, heretofore made according to any method practiced in this State, from being received in evidence, nor such adoption from having the effect of an adoption hereunder; but no child shall hereafter be adopted except under the provisions of this act, nor shall any child that has been adopted be deprived of the rights of adoption, except upon a proceeding for that purpose, with the like sanction and consent as is required for an act of adoption under the eighth section hereof; and any agreement and consent in respect to such adoption, or abrogation thereof hereafter to be made, shall be in writing, signed by such county judge or a judge of the supreme court, and the same, or a duplicate thereof, shall be filed with the clerk of the county and recorded in the book of miscellaneous records, wherein the same shall be made, and a copy of the same, certified by such clerk, may be used in evidence in all legal proceedings; but nothing in this act contained in regard to such adopted child inheriting from the person adopting shall apply to any devise or trust now made or already created, nor shall this act in any manner change, alter or interfere with such will, devise, or said trust or trusts, and as to any such will, devise, or trust said adopted child shall not be deemed an heir so as to alter estates, or trusts, or devises in wills already made or trusts already created.

From Laws of New York Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company, Printers, 1873. Pages 1243-1245.