The Ontario Archives: Scope of its Operations

by Alexander Fraser

Naturally next in importance to the records of the legislature are those of the executive council or Government. All matters requiring executive action are brought before the council upon the recommendation or report of the minister having the subject matter in charge. The recommendation or report is addressed to His Honor the Lieutenant Governor in Council. The reports of the committee of council are signed by the prime minister as president, are counter-signed by the clerk and submitted to the lieutenant governor for approval, after which the document becomes and is known as an order of His Honor the Lieutenant Governor in Council. Effect is given to orders in council affecting the general public by the promulgation of them in the Ontario Gazette; otherwise by the transmission of certified copies to the departments or persons concerned. The original orders (together with the recommendations, reports, and papers upon which they are based), after being registered in special journals, become most valuable records and much in request.

Through the department of the attorney general access is obtained to the voluminous records, rich in personal history and jurisprudence, arising from the administration of justice, in its vast ramifications and details, reaching from the policeman and justice of the peace to the high courts and court of appeal; from the homely minutes of the quarter sessions of early times, to the record of the recent cause célèbre which influenced the legislation of the country, or settled questions of constitutional import.

With the office of the provincial secretary the provincial archivist necessarily has very close relations. The office of the secretary is the medium of communication, through the lieutenant governor, between the provincial, dominion, and imperial governments. All such correspondence is registered and copies of the dispatches are kept. All commissions bearing the great seal of the Province are issued by the secretary, and are registered in his office, as are also all appointments made by his Honor the Lieutenant Governor in Council requiring the issuance of a commission. Charters of incorporation, licenses for extra-provincial companies doing business in Ontario, and marriage licenses are issued here under the direction of the secretary; here also are made records of all Crown land patents (the earliest record being 1795), the records of all mining leases and deeds and leases relating to the public lands, etc. In the secretary's office are kept the vital statistics of the Province. From the organization of the Province in 1792 until 1849 marriages were recorded in the parish and congregational registers kept by clergymen, in the minute books of the quarter sessions of the peace, and in the memorandum books of justices of the peace. In addition to this, fairly complete records of births were made in the baptismal registers, and of deaths in the journals of clergymen, who recorded the deaths of parishioners for congregational purposes. Many of these old books, however, have been either lost or destroyed, or their disposition is not known. In 1849 the municipalities were enabled to make provision by by-law for the registration of births, marriages, and deaths, and advantage was taken of that statute to a very considerable extent. From the passing of the law of 1849 until 1874 all records of marriages in the Province were returned to the city and county registrars, who became their official custodians. In 1869 the office of the registrar general was established and compulsory registration of births, marriages, and deaths introduced. Until 1874 the returns were still sent to the county and city registrars, but since 1874 they have been sent direct to the registrar general's office. The work of transcribing these returns and preserving them in proper form has been proceeding for years; and the documents, books, and statistical papers of the office, which are in safe keeping, form an invaluable collection of archives.

In addition to the original vouchers of the public accounts, the treasury department contains the papers of the succession duty office, including affidavits made by the applicants on all applications for letters probate or letters of administration in the Province showing the value, as at the date of the death of a deceased person, of such person's estate, with a general statement of the distribution thereof; including copies of wills, affidavits of value, bonds, and other documents which in particular cases have been furnished in order that the amount of succession duty payable, in cases liable to payment, might be ascertained. These documents are not generally accessible to the public, as they relate to the private concerns not only of deceased but of living persons, but they are a valuable addition to the surrogate courts' records which are a mine of genealogical information.

The great staple enterprises of Ontario are agriculture, industrial production, lumbering, mining, and in general, trade and commerce. Of these agriculture is the greatest, and the records of its growth and development have a special value to the student of economics. The statistical branch, formed in 1882, issues annual reports dealing with agricultural and municipal interests—assessment figures, population, areas assessed, taxes imposed, annual receipts and expenditures, assets and liabilities, chattel mortgages, proving of value to municipal debenture holders and the public generally.

Of all our departments, the bureau of archives has drawn most largely on the documentary treasures of the department of Crown lands. The material of historical interest here is exceedingly varied and valuable, embracing the records of the surveys of the Province; the original maps, field notes, and diaries relating to the survey of all the townships dating back to 1784, and reports of all the explorations made within the limits of the Province since that date; reports showing the planning out and surveys of the old military roads, such as Dundas Street, Yonge Street, the Penetanguishene and Kingston Roads, and the papers in connection with the surveys of the Talbot Road, the Huron Road, the Garafraxa Road, the Toronto and Sydenham Road (Owen Sound). There's much valuable information in the notes concerning the pioneer settlements. This branch also contains plans of all the old Indian reserves of the Province and reports indicating the early condition of the Indian settlements on these reserves; also of the ordnance surveys in the Province pertaining to land grants to old settlers; plans of the military reserves and plans showing the location and groundwork of the early forts. Besides these there are the original surveys of all the lands acquired by the Canada company and of those granted to King's College. A collection of much importance already transferred to the archives vaults is that embracing the diaries or journals of David Thompson, the astronomer royal, covering a period of 66 years, from 1784 to 1850, and making about 50 volumes. Thompson's famous map showing the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from a little south of the Great Lakes to Hudson Bay, is carefully preserved in the collection. Thompson's journals and map have furnished interesting material to students of our early history. They have been used by Mr. Coues in his work entitled "New light on the Great North-West," and have been found useful in connection with editions of Henry's and Thompson's journals. Competent authorities regard Thompson's work as most valuable to the State, especially in the fixing of boundary lines; but of little less importance are the field notes and diaries of many of the early surveyors, not merely for topographical reasons but on account of the detailed information given. In a separate vault are many other valuable and interesting documents, including the United Empire Loyalists' lists, the records of land grants to immigrants, to discharged soldiers, and the militia grants of warrants to discharged troops, to United Empire Loyalists, volumes of land board certificates, returns of locations compiled for the quartermaster general, fiat and warrant books, domesday books, containing original entries of every lot that is patented, and extending to 26 large volumes, descriptions and terms or references on which patents and leases are issued, patents for Crown lands, mining lands, free grant lands, and mining leases. There are also a series of maps of the townships of the Province as surveyed, which have the names of the original holders and settlers entered on each lot or block of land. These maps show among other things the grant made to King's College, and the lands allotted to the Canada Land Co. The historical value of these records is inestimable, for without them the settlement of the Province could not be traced or shown.

The most interesting archives emanating from the public-works department are the records of the early colonization roads—arteries of settlement and trade routes and the title deeds, plans and specifications, contracts, maps, and documents relating to Crown property, buildings, and institutions, a finely conditioned collection.

I have thus, at considerable length, described the field in which the archivist of Ontario labors and out of which he is gradually building up his storehouse of archives. The main purpose of the bureau is that of a record office of State papers, primarily for their proper preservation and for the greater convenience of the public service. This is in the nature of things. A central office, in which papers from all departments of the Government are lodged after they have passed out of current use, examined, classified, and filed by a staff familiar with their contents, need only be brought into use to become indispensably serviceable in the carrying on of public business; but in addition, the archivist, knowing the contents of the documents in his custody, is able to direct and help in a manner that can not otherwise be done, that portion of the public interested in the information contained in the Government archives.