Collection consists of one bound manuscript notebook softbound in a piece of brown leather. The notebook dates chiefly from 1841 and was produced in St. Armand by Philip Luke. The notebook contains a title page that has been lettered, illustrated, and coloured by hand: A Latin Translation / by Philip Luke. St. Armand. 1841. Commenced April 4th. The text within this first portion of the notebook is Aesop's Fables in English and Latin on facing pages. The first part of the manuscript ends with "13. Horse and Ass" (Latin is incomplete) and "32. Widow and Servants" (Latin text missing). The following leaf contains two medical recipes: "A cure for a felon or whitlow," refering to an abscess or infection of the fingertip and consisting of a paste made from egg yolk, honey, turpentine spirits, camphor, and flour, and "A reciet for the inflammatory rheumatism," involving a wine-based tonic containing three types of bark, horseradish, brandy, and tar water. Following another blank leaf, a partial letter is found dated 1839. Philip Luke's text begins again in the latter part of the manuscript with a second coloured title page: "Dialogues and Declamations." There is also one loose note laid in dated 1809, a receipt for 100$.

Fonds contain the personal and professional dealings of the Papineau Family, beginning with Louis-Joseph Papineau in 1828, following through his descendents, to 1943. Dealings include land grants, social events, real estate, interpersonal and business related financial notices, notes on construction projects supervised by or funded by the Papineau family, and charitable pursuits.
The fonds consists of the following series: Legal, Business, and Financial Documents, Ledgers, Account Books, and Notes, Correspondence & Personal Papers, Genealogical Materials. Majority of the files are titled according to creator rather than content and series are contained within chronological boxes (with the exception of container number 9 belonging to the Legal, Business, and Financial Documents series alongside container number 1 and container number 2).
These materials were created for the purpose of keeping track of the interpersonal and business transactions of the Papineau family.

Fonds contains five notebook kept by medical student S. J. Bennett while studying at McGill University's Faculty of Medicine. Each notebook is devoted to a subject of study, including one notebook each labelled "Medicine", "Bacteriology" and "Obstetrics" and two notebooks labelled "Pathology." The notes inside are dated between 1907 and 1908. The notes are organized in some cases by instructor and in some cases according to medical conditions.

The fonds consists of manuscripts and drafts of literary compositions and other working documents, as well as professional and personal correspondence.

The fonds contains photographs, drawings, textual records, and other material used by France Gagnon Pratte as the basis for her 1987 book, "Country Houses for Montrealers, 1892 - 1924: The Architecture of E. and W.S. Maxwell". There are also records related to a book project on the architecture associated with the Canadian Pacific Railway Line.