Collection consists of architectural drawings and other materials generated or accumulated by J.C.B. and E.C. Horwood during their training and practice as architects within a succession of firms and work places. It includes a large amount of material from other preceding or contemporary architects and practices. These other materials came into the possession of the Horwoods' firm either through amalgamations of architectural practices, planned succession transfers from retiring architects, inheritance, or through a deliberate process by J.C.B. Horwood of acquiring precedent drawings as reference sources.

The collection contains the work of about eighty-five firms, which existed in the period 1829-1975. The projects largely emphasize Toronto, since most of the firms were based in that city. Nearly two-thirds of the series document Toronto architecture. However, the collection also contains some representation from other areas in Ontario, including Brantford, Brampton, Forest Hill Village, Gravenhurst, Guelph, Hamilton, Lorne Park, Mimico, Muskoka, Woodstock, York and North York Townships. There is also some material for the British Isles, Europe, and the United States, as well as from other parts of Canada. Included also are architectural artifacts, such as Frederic W. Cumberland's pantograph and William G. Storm's wooden writing table.

The records document many building types including schools, churches, government or institutional buildings, department stores, commercial and industrial facilities, bridges, skating rinks, funerary structures, and private residences.

The collection contains a wide variety of architectural record types, including mechanical and engineering drawings, survey drawings, site plans, water-colour perspectives, maps, and photographs. There is a vast quantity of masonry sketch work for a few of the projects, such as Osgoode Hall and University College. The collection also includes prints and engravings used as reference material by some of the architects.

The collection also includes a large number of textual items such as: written specifications, a small quantity of correspondence, accounting sheets, job ledgers, notes, building trade and advertising brochures, reports, daily record showing time spent each day by draftsmen, printed photo-mechanical illustrations, certificates and minutes of architectural societies, and some contracts.

For a more detailed description, use this link to the Archives of Ontario's descriptive database: http://ao.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/PROV/PROV/REFD+C+11?SESSIONSEARCH

Fonds consists of materials illustrating the personal life and publishing career of Andrew Dyas MacLean, including private and business records inherited by him concerning his father Hugh Cameron MacLean and uncle John Bayne MacLean, both publishers as well. Further personal records pertain to his paternal grandparents, Rev. Andrew MacLean and Catherine Cameron, and his mother's family, the Dyas family of Toronto.

Publishing records include primarily correspondence, notes, and issues of publications, with some statements, minute books, and other administrative records. Personal records are comprised of correspondence, household accounts, real estate papers, clippings and records of social activities, and various materials illustrating key aspects of the lives of Andrew D. MacLean and his family: for example, his grandfather's sermons, his uncle John's phrenological records, his father Hugh's records of the Toronto Canoe Club, and his own service as secretary to Prime Minister R.B. Bennett. Fonds also includes photographs, paintings, and books.

Fonds contains records reflecting the MacLeans' social and family connections with: European nobility and other members of the upper class, including the Duke of Devonshire, the Queen Regent of Portugal, and Sir Fitzroy Maclean of Morvern; key international business contacts of the time, including Charles S. Rolls and Frank A. Munsey; and important Canadians such as Prime Ministers Bennett, Borden, Meighen and Pearson, Billy Bishop, Goldwin Smith, and E. Cora Hind.

Materials reflect the activities principally in southern Ontario, with some records from the Canadian Arctic, the Rocky Mountains, Scotland, England, Australia, and the Mediterranean.

Fonds has been arranged into eight series.

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Fonds consists of records relating to the history of the Rogers family that were created by several generations of Rogerses and other people related to them by marriage. The records document aspects of the social, military and political lives of the family. Other record creators in this fonds include such Rogers relations as the Greeley family of Colborne, the Cassady family of Kingston, the Eberts family and Waddell family of Chatham, and the Merritt family of St. Catharines, Ontario.

For a more detailed description, use this link to the Archives of Ontario's descriptive database: http://ao.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/PROV/PROV/REFD+F+533?SESSIONSEARCH

Collection consists of correspondence, land records (including deeds), legal records, genealogical information, diaries, maps, memoranda, and accounts. The majority of the records are not specifically concerned with the public lives of Powell or Jarvis, but are personal family documents reflecting the attitudes, interests, problems and way of life of the members of loyalist ruling class families. The memoranda of William Dummer Powell tell of his career and early Canadian years. Many of the letters written between 1820 and 1857 are from Samuel Peters Jarvis to his wife Mary while he was commanding officer of the Queen's Rangers during the Rebellion of 1837-8, while he was with the Department of Indian Affairs, and when he was travelling in Great Britain and elsewhere. Collection also includes various travel diaries maintained by Jarvis.
Also included are various maps and plans of areas including Long Point, Turkey Point, York, the project town of Tayport, Guelph, and Toronto.

Collection also includes miscellaneous documents, such as calling cards, watercolours, poems, an exercise book of William Jarvis, a newspaper article, and a sample of hair from the heads of Aemilius Jarvis and Edward Henry Bernard.
Records created after 1857 deal mainly with estate problems and litigation.

For a more detailed description, use this link to the Archives of Ontario's descriptive database: http://ao.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/PROV/PROV/REFD+F+31?SESSIONSEARCH

Fonds consists of Alexander Fraser's correspondence, accounts, certificates, commissions, speeches, lectures, sermons, literary works in English and Gaelic, minutes and reports of various societies and associations, military documents, biographical and genealogical information, menus, invitations, cards, programmes, photographs, poetry, music, maps, newspaper clippings, and printed material. Fonds contains the following series: Correspondence, 1779-1936, N.D (Series I) Certificates and Commissions, 1893-1931 (Series II) Accounts, 1844, 1857, 1873-1934, N.D. (Series III) Cards, Invitations, Menus and Programs, 1853-1934, N.D. (Series IV) Speeches, Sermons and Lectures, 1814, 1882-1931, N.D. (Series V) Literary Works: Writings of Alexander Fraser (Series VI- 1) Writings of Other Persons (Series VI- 2) Gaelic Works (Series VII) Societies and Associations, 1858-1933 (Series VIII) Music and Poetry (Series IX) Photographs and Maps (Series X) Biographical and Genealogical Information (Series XI) Clippings, 1826-1936 (Series XII) Printed Material, 1873-1946 (Series XIII)

For a more detailed description, use this link to the Archives of Ontario's descriptive database: http://ao.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/PROV/PROV/REFD+F+1015?SESSIONSEARCH

Fonds consists of one handwritten cash book kept by Ball in which he documented transactions in New York (Mohawk Valley) and Upper Canada. The entries are mostly for the sale of farm produce and groceries such as flour, wheat, apples, and pork.

An index of customers' names and several loose documents are inserted in the cash book.

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Some of the entries made in 1772 are written in plattdeutsch or low German.

Collection consists of a mixture of materials about Robert Gourlay and his family, and records created by him and his family. It contains correspondence, genealogical charts, autobiographical notes of Gourlay, records regarding the Gourlay family in Scotland, records regarding the disposition of Gourlay's lands in Dereham Township in Oxford County, Canada West, as well as two replies to questionnaires submitted by Gourlay. Correspondence includes material regarding Mrs. Jean Gourlay and children of Robert Gourlay. Also included is correspondence of William Renwick Riddell, an early biographer of Gourlay, and correspondence concerning people possessing documents relating to Robert Gourlay. Correspondence also includes letters between Robert Gourlay and his first wife Jean (Henderson) Gourlay, and the children by his first wife (Jean, Jessie, Oliver, Helen, and Catherine). Most of Gourlay's letters to his family at this time were written from the United States when he resided in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Ohio. These letters refer to family matters, and Gourlay's struggle with the government of Upper Canada and the government of the United Province of Canada.

Material regarding the disposition of Gourlay's lands in Dereham Township consists of correspondence between Robert Gourlay's daughter Helen, and his second wife Mary concerning a dispute over the real estate. Other records include a promissory note, a bond, a discharge of debt, and memorandum of agreement between Mary Gourlay and Joseph Riddell concerning intent to convey land, and a power of attorney between Robert Gourlay and John Smith of Dereham.

Collection also includes miscellaneous items, including: the original prospectus of a newspaper called the Commonweal which was to be edited by Gourlay; replies from Trafalgar Township to questionnaires posed by Gourlay for the collection of data for the Statistical Account of Upper Canada; minutes of a meeting held by inhabitant of Haldimand Township including the chiefs of the Five Nations for the purpose of supplying data for the same account; newspaper clippings concerning the career of Robert Gourlay (three of which were written by Mabel Burkholder); a memorandum of biographical data concerning Robert Gourlay by James McIntyre; a typescript of excerpts of articles in the Ingersoll Chronicle concerning Gourlay's bid for election to the Legislative Assembly; notes on Robert Gourlay by Ethel Canfield; and an excerpt from the Illustrated London News, concerning the choice of Bytown as Canada's capital.

Collection also includes miscellaneous legal records, concerning the marriage between Robert Gourlay's parents, the marriage between Robert Gourlay and Mrs. Jean Stewart (nee Henderson), the estate of Oliver Gourlay, and the Gourlay family tree.

For a more detailed description, use this link to the Archives of Ontario's descriptive database: http://ao.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/PROV/PROV/REFD+F+72?SESSIONSEARCH

Fonds consists of records of Sir John Beverley Robinson, Christopher Robinson, Sir Charles W. Robinson, Sir Frederick P. Robinson, and of Sir William H. Robinson. Fonds includes: five bound diaries of John Beverley Robinson, bound correspondence between John Beverley Robinson and Emma Walker, an album of manuscript poems by Bishop John Strachan and Lady Sarah Maitland, a scrapbook of commissions, as well as loose commissions and appointments, a scrapbook of autograph letters and portrait reproductions, Robinson family arms with two wax seals issued by the College of Heralds, London, England in 1854, and document with wax seal granting title of Baronet to Sir John Beverley Robinson in 1854. Fonds also includes: general correspondence, bonds, reports, agreements, addresses, accounts, indentures, records arising from a special commission on the trial for treason in 1838, charges to the grand jury (arranged chronologically), accounts, records regarding forfeited estates of the North West Company, as well as journals and notebooks of Sir Frederick P. Robinson, Sir John Beverley Robinson, Christopher Robinson, and Charles W. Robinson.

For a more detailed description, use this link to the Archives of Ontario's descriptive database: http://ao.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/PROV/PROV/REFD+F+44?SESSIONSEARCH

Fonds consists of correspondence, receipts, accounts, commissions, military records, legal records, and literary records of Jacob Pringle and other members of the Pringle family. Included are correspondence, receipts, and commissions of Jacob Farrand, a maternal ancestor of Jacob Farrand Pringle. Fonds also contains correspondence of James Pringle at Valenciennes, arrangements for the Pringle family to leave Yarmouth, England, for Upper Canada, accounts regarding the estate of James Pringle, and correspondence regarding a military pension for his wife, Anne. Personal records of Jacob Ferrand Pringle include: a genealogy of the Pringle family, legal appointments, military commission, and personal correspondence. Fonds also includes records relating to the Cornwall Volunteer Infantry Company which was raised by Jacob Pringle in 1862, and saw active service in repelling Fenian forces. These records include correspondence, pay lists, size rolls for the allotment of uniforms, and applications for medals. Also included are various legal records arising from Pringle's work as a lawyer. These records include: correspondence (pertaining to legal cases, points of law, and business letters to and from other law firms), printed materials, legal documents left with Pringle for safekeeping (including deeds, agreements, powers of attorney, quit claim deeds, letters patent, court accounts, leases, mortgages, insurance contracts, court notes from the assizes, petitions, and subpoenas), assessments and tax receipts, crown grants, estate records (of the estates of Colonel Alexander Fraser, Alexander Forsyth, Hugh Urquhart, and Angus Grant, and records include: correspondence, wills, annual reports of banks, and other records). Fonds also includes a groups records arising from a dispute between the Church of Scotland and the Free Church, in which both churches claimed a right to a portion of land in Glengarry County known as the Indian Reservation, inhabited by the St. Regis Iroquois nation. These records include correspondence with the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Reverend H. Urquhart (who was representing the Presbytery of Glengarry on behalf of the Indian Lands Congregation, and Reverend D. Gordon of the Free Church sect. Fonds also contains correspondence from Jacob Pringle to members of the Education Department for the Eastern District regarding the marketing of his book Lunenburgh or the Old Eastern District. Also included are poetry and miscellaneous writings by Pringle.

Fonds consists of records created and obtained by Major David Secord during his time in Lincoln County, 1788-1844, as well as by other Secord family members.

The majority of the records are petitions for compensation to the Province of Upper Canada for damages to David Secord's property in St. Davids during the War of 1812. Some petitions go into detail as to how the Secord family arrived in Lincoln County and the battles Secord participated in, and some petitions briefly describe his family's loyalty to Britain. An inventory list of damaged property with estimated values is also included in the fonds.

The fonds contains a family Bible with signatures of family members; David Secord's appointments to Major and Lieutenant; an early version of his will; a land grant; the American citizenship certificate of James Bradley, a grandson of Major David Secord through marriage, and a petition for compensation from Daniel Secord, likely a cousin of David.

Also included are copies of obituaries, a bookmark and greeting card which were originally laid in the bible.

A majority of the items have a “Thom J. Armstrong” rubber stamp imprint. He was a grandson of David Secord.

Files are in rough chronological order.

For a more detailed description, use this link to the Archives of Ontario's descriptive database: http://ao.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/PROV/PROV/REFD+F+4632?SESSIONSEARCH