This fonds contains 25 personal diaries of Kent County merchant F. J. Mayhew, beginning with an 1863 trip to his birthplace in England, then following his daily activities back in Thamesville, Ontario and surrounding area, 1879-1905. The diaries are small, and the entries brief; some entries are “cross-written” (in which the diarist fills the available space, then turns the page at a 90-degree angle and writes another passage over the first). Mayhew comments on the weather, meals eaten, people he visited or received visits from, business activities, farming activities, and social or other events.

This fonds primarily contains records related to a parcel of land along the Detroit River in what is now Riverside, designated as Lot 116. This property was once a farmstead, later subdivided for residential use and the site of Edith Cavell elementary school. One file contains a small number of documents (1849-1938) from the Parent family, largely relating to the home, goods, and property of their farm. There are also 8 photographs of the property (ca. 1920s and 1950s) including the farmhouse, the school, a streetcar shelter, and a young Haines Cox. Several blueprints and plans depict Lot 116, its planned subdivision (“Lundy Heights”), and drains, ca. 1900-1918. Copies of two newspaper stories provide context for the Parent house and the Edith Cavell school.

One file contains material (1824-1833) related to a Parent cousin named Paul LeDuc, in connection with LeDuc’s lease of unceded lands in Bkejwanong Territory (along the St. Clair River delta) from the Anishinaabe community there that would later be known as Walpole Island First Nation. These handwritten records include receipts, notes, and a lease. Of special note is a land use agreement between LeDuc and four chiefs identified as Chippewa (also given as Ojibwe) from the Chenail Ecarte community, signed by the chiefs with animal doodems (totems).

This fonds consists of a single land grant document on parchment with a very large wax seal attached. The document, signed on 10 March 1804, grants 314 acres of land from the Province of Upper Canada to “Jean Baptiste Tourneaux.” The land was designated as lot 78 in the first, second, and third concessions of the Parish of L’Assomption (Assumption) in the Township of Sandwich. This lot extended from present-day Salter Avenue in the west to Bruce Avenue in the east, from the Detroit River in the north down to the Roseland Golf Course in the south. Janette Avenue, which runs through the lot, was named for Jean Baptiste Le Tourneaux dit Jeannet, the grantee.

This fonds contains original records documenting 19th and early 20th century land ownership for several parcels of land in rural Essex County, including deeds of land, affidavits, and mortgages. There are also handwritten notes tracking the chain of ownership for a specific parcel. The lands documented are (1) Lot 16 South of Middle Road, Rochester Township, and (2) Lots 17 and 18 in the Ninth Concession of Sandwich South Township (formerly Sandwich East Township). These transactions involve farmers, farmwives, and bankers, as well as single, widowed, and married people, neighbours, and relatives.

This fonds contains records related to the life and work of 19th century Upper Canadian shipwright Shadrach Jenking. The records are primarily original legal documents related to the sale, acquisition, and boundaries of land in the Township of Sandwich, but also included are original papers relating to Jenking’s training as a shipwright and copies of his descendants’ genealogical research. The fonds is arranged into three series. Series I: Labour Agreements contains documents relating to Jenking’s apprenticeship. Series II: Land Agreements includes deeds and assignments of mortgage, as well as one property sketch and one blueprint. Many are tied to families of Jenking or his wife Margaret Maisonville. Series III: Genealogical Research and Fragments contains bits of unidentified original documents and a variety of correspondence, notes, and photocopied resources relating to the family history of Shadrach Jenking and his descendants.

This fonds contains documents and images related to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European settlement in Essex and Kent counties. These include an Irish immigrant’s personal journal of settling in Essex County with his two sisters (1850). The journal primarily details Jasper Golden’s travels (Atlantic crossing, St. Lawrence River, Quebec, Kingston, Niagara, Buffalo, Detroit, Windsor) but also includes later details about time spent in Malden, Anderdon, and the now-lost port of Albertville (near Kingsville). There are also official records of infrastructure and property in Howard Township (1909), and organizational and research material related to an effort to preserve the Walker family’s rare fieldstone-clad Kent County farmhouse as a historic site. (David and Ann Walker were Scottish immigrants who settled in Harwich Township, Kent County in 1845, with their original grant of farmland remaining in the family until 1972.) The fonds also includes approximately 448 slides depicting pre-1900 homes, buildings, furnishings, objects, weapons, and equipment in Kent and Essex counties, from a Canada Council-funded project to document these artifacts. There is also a short history of Buxton, Ontario, and slides of a memorial to Shawnee chief Tecumseh.

This fonds contains a single document, officially granting Lot 82 in Sandwich, Ontario (located near present-day Moy Avenue and Hall Avenue, abutting the Detroit River) to William Gaspe Hall in 1852.