Family correspondence chiefly from 1763 to 1820 and family history documents.

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 36 autograph letters written to James Cameron and his son Archie. The correspondence includes letters by friends, associates, and members of the Cameron family in Toronto, Lake Beauport, Scotland, England, Hull, and Montreal. Subjects include family news, freemasonry, business (regarding deed of sales), factory work in Toronto, curling, and an April Fools' Day letter. With three extant envelopes.

Correspondence, accounts, journals maps, etc., documenting Bissett’s career with the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Photostats (in C.1 and C.2) include Bissett’s journal and accounts at the Red River, 1854-1855, and a journal “Lachine to the Sandwich Islands” 1858-1859. There are also journals for 1859 and 1867. The original documents (in C.3) include correspondence with the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1858-1875, and accounts, 1860-1873. There are Bissett’s commissions as Chief Trader (1858) and as Chief Factor (1872), and a list of Chief Traders and Factors, 1855-1879. There are also some plans / maps, sketches, and photographs including a sketch of the Hudson’s Bay Post at Honolulu, ca. 1860.

Letters and diaries, including typescript transcriptions with photographs, newspaper clippings and ephemera.

The fonds reflects the scientific and literary outreach activities of the Montreal Natural History Society over the course of its existence and contains correspondence, minutes, financial records, council and committee reports, membership lists, donation lists, catalogues of holdings, newspaper clippings, lecture advertisements and weather maps. In addition, the fonds includes reference material to other societies and information regarding the publication and creation of the Canadian Naturalist and Quarterly Journal of Science, Canadian Naturalist and Geologist and the Canadian Record of Science.

The fonds is composed of the following series: 1) Accounting Records (1860-1917); 2) Administrative Records (1833-1887); 3) Catalogues (ca.1829-ca.1925); 4) Correspondence (1871-1896 with gaps); 5) Essays and Lectures (1829-1852); 6) Minutes (1827-1832,1844-1923); 7) Montreal Microscopical Society (1884-1906); 8) Reports (1828-1881 with gaps); 9) Weather Maps (1895-1897).

Correspondence 1921-1931 concerning Simon McTavish; official copies of legal documents including estate inventories, lawsuits over the McTavish estate, and Simon McTavish’s will; notes for Baylis’ study of McTavish; numerous petitions and newspaper clippings on the state of the McTavish monument and tomb (Peel St., Montreal), and a typescript of his text concerning Simon McTavish. Also two letters from Ignatius Donnelly, 1899, and a letter 1895, from J. Middleton to John Doyle about 19th century gardening in Montreal and the funeral of Judge James Reid.

Fonds consists of six letters, with four manuscript letters from Rilke written between 1896 and 1922 and two discussing letters discussing these. The four letters from Rilke are addressed to various correspondents, including on 8 November 1896 to the author Gabriele Reuter regarding her book, 15 October 1904 to Anette Vedel, and 9 July 1907 to an unidentified correspondent. The fourth letter dates likely from August or September 1922 and is addressed to Elfriede Nicolaus. The two later letters which discuss the Rilke letters include one dated 13 December 1954 from Hedvig Wahlgren regarding the date of the 1922 letter to Nicolaus and one dated 29 November 1955 from Ruth Fritzsche (née Rilke) to McGill Librarian Richard Pennington.

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.