This material comprises a copy of a family book and of a genealogy of Andrew Drummond, ca 1900.

The fonds documents Dorothy Duncan’s personal and professional activities as an American-born Canadian writer and painter, primarily between 1930 and her death in 1957. Duncan’s career as a writer is represented by scrapbooks, clippings, and photographs related to her published works, two unpublished manuscripts, and contracts and correspondence with publishers and her literary agent in New York. Her activities as a painter are documented in clippings, lists of paintings, and contracts with art galleries. The fonds also contains personal correspondence, including letters from friends, family, fans, and a significant number of letters from her husband, Hugh MacLennan. Duncan’s notebooks and diaries also attest to her personal and professional activities. They document her early adulthood in Illinois and her later life in Montreal, and include notes, agendas, and a ledger. The fonds also contains two albums of personal photographs.

The collection consists of fifteen volumes, primarily manuscript with some printed, containing over 1,300 culinary and medical handwritten recipes, plus numerous loose recipes also mainly manuscript. The documents in the collection originated chiefly from the Doncaster area of South Yorkshire, centred on Hooten Pagnell Hall. Many of the manuscripts and notes are signed by or addressed to Sarah Anne Warde. Series 1 comprises the fifteen bound volumes, two of which are printed works by female authors, while the remaining thirteen are manuscript notebooks. Two of these manuscript notebooks are attributed to Sarah Anne Warde, while one is attributed to Eliza Smithson. The manuscript attributed to Eliza Smithson contains table setting riddles (also known as an enigmatical bill of fare). Loose recipes are found in Series 2. This series consists of approximately 300 culinary, medical, and household recipes dating from roughly the 1780s through the 1850s.

The fonds consists of records pertaining to the Montreal Diet Dispensary and its connection to other charitable associations and institutions that assisted in the general functions of the Dispensary; the records date from 1885-1965 with a single record from 1980. There are notebooks filled with notes from the Diet Dispensary meetings from the late 1880s up until the mid-1900s. There is correspondence to financial and legal bodies such as the Royal Bank of Canada and Armstrong & De Witt from the Dispensary, dating from 1907-1929. In addition to business correspondence, there are also some personal correspondence to and from Dr. Denstedt from 1957-1958. In addition, there are a number of annual reports and statements for the Dispensary as well as the Welfare Federation of Montreal and its member agencies (of which the Diet Dispensary was one); these date from 1921-1957. Furthermore there are some mounted colour slides, date unknown, and a series of photos depicting Dr. Denstedt and various women at Richmond Square from 1956. There are also administrative records such as the Montreal Diet Dispensary Address Book, date unknown, and some publications mainly in the form of nutritional pamphlets from 1936-1942.

Fonds consists of primarily financial and legal records related to property transfers and the estates of members of the Dawes and Leishman families. It includes land sale deeds, court documents, invoices, receipts, and wills. Business and legal affairs of James P. Dawes, his wife Elizabeth Leishman, and their son Albert F. Dawes are represented in the fonds. Business deals associated with James P. Dawes include with Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada. Many legal documents in the fonds are related to land holdings and property in Lachine, Quebec.

Fonds contains manuscript of "Cours de réligion en vers," 1797.

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.

Letters and papers relating to employment with the Hudson’s Bay Company. These include letters of appointment, official announcements, lists of officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and an inventory the posts and officers in the Albany River district.

Collection consists of six account books dating from the 1830s to the 1860s, including ledgers and daybooks, used and kept primarily by Enoch Curtis for his leather tanning business. There are also some loose accounts and notes on small sheets of paper. The ledgers use a single-entry bookkeeping method in £sd. They are organized by individual merchant account, with records of debits (purchases or expenditures made) and credits (payments or goods received). Parallel underlining and Xs indicate when an account has balanced. The collection also includes some records related to Stella Curtis from the 1890s, including one letter and two sheets of math problems marked Clarenceville Model School.

Manuscript copy from shorthand notes of proceedings in the Court of Queen's Bench, 12 January, 1839 to 25 January, 1839, concerning an appeal for the release of 12 Canadians from a transportation sentence for taking part in the 1837 Rebellion.