N.Y. Canal Law § 24
There shall be kept on file in the office of the corporation complete maps of every canal now or hereafter to be built on which the boundaries of every parcel of land to which the state shall have a separate title shall be designated and the names of the former owner and date of each title entered. All such maps heretofore approved by the commissioner of transportation or the corporation, or certified by such commissioner, corporation or by the state engineer or hereafter approved by the corporation to be correct, shall be presumptive evidence of the truth of the facts therein stated and of the ownership by the state of the lands therein described. Every such map when completed shall be approved and certified to as correct by the corporation. The original of said map shall be filed in the office of the corporation and copies thereof duly signed and certified as aforesaid shall be filed in the office of the department of state. Any such maps filed in the office of the clerk of a county in which such lands are located or in the office in such county where conveyances are required by law to be recorded shall constitute evidence to all persons of the state's title to and ownership in said lands. A transcript of such maps certified as correct by the officer with whom such map or maps shall be filed, shall be received as presumptive evidence of the state's title to the canal lands as of the date designated on such maps in all judicial or legal proceedings.
N.Y. Canal Law § 24