The Coppenrath Collection of Voyageurs Contracts for the North West Company partners contains 52 contracts for the period from approximately 1800 to 1821. These document the terms of engagement for men going into the North West . Voyageur contracts are of particular interest for study of the fur trade, Canada's first major industry, because they document the conditions of employment for many of the journeymen ("engagés") involved in the trade, both those who worked on the Ottawa River and those who "wintered" in the North West. The contracts are dated from 1800 to 1821 with printed forms from before 1800 being used in some cases. A significant number of outfitters are included namely the firm of McTavish, McGillivrays & Co. with various partners including John Ogilvy and Thomas Thain, Pierre de Rocheblave and earlier partnership – McTavish, Frobisher & Co. As well, there are contracts with lesser known outfitters. These contracts provide not only the names of the "engagés" but usually their place of residence and the conditions and terms of their employment.

Three letters from Seaton relating to the Rebellion of 1837, including a letter to General Fitzroy Sommerset about the capture of St-Eustache.

Collection contains primarily of 9 photograph albums containing 457 silver print photographs, and 4 printed items. It also includes records relating to Canadian railways and an export catalogue from the Canadian Car and Foundry Company.

This collection consists of letters to Sir James Craig and others on the subject of Lower Canada, 1810-1815.

The David Hume Collection contains letters and other ephemera brought together from multiple acquisitions. The principal manuscripts are found in is the bound volume containing letters from David Hume to the Comtesse de Boufflers. There are also letters from Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others for a total of 59 letters. This collection of letters was the basis for the anonymously edited Private Correspondence of David Hume with Several Distinguished Persons, Between the Years 1761 and 1776. Now First Published From the Originals. (London: Printed for Henry Colburn and Co., 1820.) One of the McGill copies of this book belonged to the Montreal lawyer and book collector Frederick Griffin (1798-1877). In addition to this volume there are eight other Hume letters. Some of these have been published by Professor Klibansky and Ernest C. Mosser in New Letters of David Hume. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954). Finally, there are photographic copies of Hume manuscripts held by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and typed copies of official letters on Canada from the manuscripts of Sir Mark Dalrymple.

The Burney family manuscript collection consists chiefly of material created by Fanny Burney (1752-1840), novel Evelina (1778) was a bestseller during her life time and is still in print, as well as by Burney family members and friends. The manuscript collection contains correspondence, letter fragments, and a journal kept by Fanny Burney (1812), and other materials by Burney herself, other members of her family, and members of their circle. The collection also includes significant correspondence for her father, the musician and musical historian Charles Burney (1726-1814).

The collection documents the experiences of Japanese Canadians in Montréal and in Canada, as well as Japanese Canadian cultural and social contributions, over an approximately 60 year period, mainly 1940-2000.

The collection contains records reflecting the activities of the JCCCM organization and often related to individuals and/or families, and includes correspondence, photographs, and a variety of printed materials. The collection also contains detailed biographical records, compiled during the 1980s, related to the Issei, Nisei, and Sansei as well as other non-Japanese individuals active in the community. In addition, there are approximately 150 tape recordings, transcripts, and oral histories; art work and cultural contributions done by members of the Japanese community; directories, newspapers, publications, pamphlets, and records; administrative records of the NAJC chapter in Montréal; as well as local and national NAJC and JCCS records.

The series consist of 1) publications; 2) biographical files; 3) general subject files; 4) Japanese Canadian Centennial Society (JCCS) files; and 5) NAJC/ Redress files; 6) Exhibits; 7) Photographs. Many of the files are arranged alphabetically or by subject.

The fonds present extremely rich source for the study of Montreal and Quebec social and legal history. The fonds (mainly 1820-1890) comprises of judicial diaries or judges' bench books, which contain unique information: the opinions and memoranda of judges and lawyers of the Lower Canada and the Quebec Superior Court written down in the course of trials. They reflect the judge's interpretation of the law, his reaction to arguments and they show the background to official verdicts. The fonds contain bench books of Judges Robert Mackay (1871-1882), Andrew Stuart (1859-1885), Frederick Torrance (1869-1880). There are also record books of several law firms including Rose and Holmes (1840-1850), and Torrance and Morris (1850-1875). Included is also administrative correspondence, factums on various Montreal judges and lawyers, dockets and other records of law firms, legal authority books, commonplace books and other notes of individual lawyers. Present is also small number of lecture notes by lecturers in the Faculty of Law, student notes, scrapbooks as well as legal notes of unknown provenance. The bench books are in bound volume arranged in chronological order, the correspondence and authorities books are arranged by name or subject. There are contemporary indexes to the bench books of F. Torrance and R. Mackay.

This volume is a circulating letter of the first graduating class in Agriculture; a class member would write his personal and career news addressed to the class in general and forward the book to the next person to do the same.

Half of these records consist of printed annual announcements (including Canadian Medical Register) from 1914 to 1961. The remainder consists of a number of files on "old controversies" stripped from the MCC files in 1955 and sent to Dr. D. Sclater Lewis. Some of the controversies concerned a move to amalgamate MCC examinations with final-year university medical examinations, 1941; the status of homeopathic practitioners, 1923-1940; registration in the U.K., 1914-1925; the petition of returning military medical officers to take the MCC licence without examination, 1919; and control of specialists by the MCC, 1934-1935.