This series consists of business and personal correspondence created by and received by James Morrison in his capacity as a trader and merchant. Most of the correspondence is between Morrison and his business contacts in Quebec, Ontario, the Northern United States, and England. Some letters are from family members and contain both business and personal news, including Morrison's nephew, Samuel Morrison, in Baltimore, Morrison's brother-in-law, Charles LePallieur, who worked as a fur trader in Ontario and the United States, and Morrison's son, Charles Morrison, who travelled to Jamaica in search of work. Many of the letters in this series contain interesting information about the price and availability of various goods, especially wheat, rum, sugar, and molasses.

The letters in the series are grouped by intervals of 5 or 10 years into files of roughly similar size: 1770s (Correspondence, 1771-1776), 1780s (Correspondence, 1781-1789), the first half of the 1790s (Correspondence, 1790-1795), and the second half of the 1790s (Correspondence, 1795-1800). The letters are arranged in chronological order.

Series consists chiefly of 38 manuscripts related to the North West Company. Among the Masson manuscripts there are other series of letters; as well as journals kept by North-Westers and various business documents. Some of this material exists as originals; others are contemporary copies - the George Keith letters for example are contemporary copies on paper watermarked 1827. The collection also includes some duplicate texts - contemporary copies or later nineteenth-century copies that in some cases represent edited versions of the texts. Samuel Wilcocke's account of the death of Benjamin Frobisher exists in a draft original (or contemporary copy) and in a late nineteenth-century clean copy. Of course Benjamin Frobisher did not die in the dramatic circumstances as recorded by Wilcocke, but peacefully in Quebec City in 1821.

Series consists of approximately 300 culinary, medical, and household recipes dating from roughly the 1780s through the 1850s. Recipes are handwritten in multiple late 18th- and early 19th-century hands on papers of varying sizes, including many small fragments. Medical recipes consist of doctors' prescriptions and various formulae for making and using medicines. Household recipes and instructions are found for products such as polishes, cleaning solutions, and dyes, and activities such as clothes washing. Culinary recipes, the largest category of recipes, are found for a variety of dishes and ingredients, including multiple recipes for puddings, wines, jellies, cakes, gingerbreads, vinegars, biscuits, yeast, pickled dishes, and preserved fruits.
Many contain attributions by the recipe writers, listing the creator or provenance of the recipe. Some recipes also feature names of addressees. Many of these are addressed to Mrs. Warde and appear to be recipes that were either sent to her or solicited by her from friends and acquaintances. One document that postdates the rest of the items in the series is a bill (1950) addressed to Mrs. Warde-Aldam (MSG 1231-2-9).

Series consists of original records relating primarily to the Hart, Joseph and de Sola families; however, materials relating to the de Sola family dominate the series. Includes records relating to Abraham de Sola, Abraham's father David Aaron de Sola as well as Abraham's sons Aaron David Meldola de Sola and Clarence Isaac de Sola. Also Includes records of the early Hart family, mostly concerning Aaron Hart and the family's settlement in Trois-Rivières, Quebec.

The documents primarily include correspondence to and from Abraham de Sola and to a lesser extent his sons Aaron David Meldola & Clarence Isaac de Sola. There is some early correspondence by David Aaron de Sola, Abraham de Sola's father. As well, the series Includes personal correspondence between Abraham de Sola and his wife Esther Joseph de Sola and their children (particularly Aaron David Meldola and Clarence Isaac).

Abraham de Sola's correspondence relates to his work as reverend of the Shearith Israel (Montreal) synagogue; Professor of Oriental Languages at McGill University; and as a lodge member of the Ancient Jewish Order of Kesher Shel Barzel, to which he gave his name to its first Canadian lodge in 1872, the De Sola Lodge no. 89. There is extensive correspondence relating to the lodge as well as other lodges in the order, the majority located in the United States. The correspondence relating to Abraham de Sola's professorship at McGill University includes a number of letters from Principal William Dawson.

The correspondence in the fonds related to David Aaron Meldola de Sola focuses on his assuming the position of Reverend of the Shearith Israel (Montreal) Synagogue upon his father's death in 1882, and Includes a number of handwritten and printed sermons given to the congregation. The correspondence and documents relating to Clarence Isaac de Sola focuses mainly on his role as the president of the Federation of Zionist Societies of Canada from 1899 to 1920. This includes sermons, conference proceedings, as well correspondence between Clarence Isaac de Sola and the leader of the Zionist movement, Theodore Herzl.

Series consists of 15 bound volumes containing culinary and medicinal recipes, all created or collected in the Doncaster region of South Yorkshire. Two of the volumes are printed works by female authors devoted to cooking, confectionery, and household management (publication dates 1795 and 1814). The remaining 13 are manuscript notebooks. Two of the manuscripts feature attributions to Sarah Anne Warde, while one is attributed to Eliza Smithson. The manuscript attributed to Eliza Smithson contains an enigmatical bill of fare, or table setting riddles, penned by Smithson wherein in place of the name of a dish, Smithson provides an enigma.

This series contains personal diaries kept by Christina Barbara Hall, Benjamin Hall, and Charlotte Hall between 18 October 1795 and 8 May 1886. Christina Barbara Hall's diaries were written while she lived in Andover, Massachusetts, and in Montreal, Quebec. Benjamin Hall's diaries were written from Montreal and during a trip to London, England. Charlotte Hall's diary was written while she lived in Montreal. The diaries chiefly concern weather, news of family and community members, as well as occasional remarks about politics.

Each diary (or set of loose pages) was allocated a separate file because of the size and/or fragility of the volumes, and to maintain consistency within the series. Files in the series are arranged in chronological order. Diaries are mostly bound volumes, though Benjamin Hall's diaries are loose pages.