Approximately half this material consists of letters, covering the years 1823-1837, from Andrew William Cochran, 1792-1849, civil secretary to the governors of Lower Canada from 1812 onwards, and a member of the Executive Council from 1827 to 1841. The remainder comprises a number of accounts of travels and exploration by North West Company employees, probably collected by McKenzie for his history. Included are Charles McKenzie's expeditions amongst the Otoe Missouria Tribe.; Edward Umfreville's journal of a canoe trip from Lake Superior to Portage de l'Isle 1784; accounts of the Alaskan Athabaskans, 1795 and 1805, George Keith's memoirs of the McKenzie River Department, 1807-1817; and George Henry Monk's of the Department of Fond du Lac or Mississippi, 1807; John McDonnell's account of the Red River, ca 1787; and John Johnston's of Lake Superior and a letter on the Indigenous communities of the northwest from Eneas McDonnell. Also included are letters written to McKenzie from Forks on the Mackenzie River by William Ferdinand Wentzel, 1807-1824.
Fonds consists of forty notebooks containing poetry and essays written by Sgt. James Denoon of the Royal Artillery. These are copies of his works dating back to 1832 made by him while at his residence, Maple Bank in Three Rivers, Quebec during roughly the period from 1883 to 1890 to pass on to his granddaughter, Bertha. Denoon’s notebooks contain sporadic notes and commentary giving further information on the subjects of his poems and on his activities. There is some repetition of material, but several notebooks containing duplicated works are found to differ and contain various revisions, in some cases with significant differences. An article written by Carmine Starnino in the Arc Poetry Magazine (Summer, 2007) about this group of notebooks after they were discovered in Westmount, Quebec, discusses the merits of Denoon’s poetry and how they fit into 19th-century society during a time when many newspapers were inserting the works of everyday “closet poets”. In an editorial statement soliciting amateur poetry, the Quebec Gazette which published at least a pair of Denoon’s works described their purpose: As may at once please the Fancy and instruct the Judgement.
Madame Desrivière's diaries describe social, family and economic life in Montréal and Stansbridge, Québec. The first (1843-1846) and last (1853-1854) volumes are in French, the others in English.
This collection consists of 15 autograph letters between a sender who is only identified by the initials "J.T." and a Miss Fanny Caulfield. Also included is a love letter by Irish poet J. Finnerty, dated 1852.
