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On serendipity and lost records

Alexander Fraser, Provincial Archivist for Ontario, published the following prefatory to the 1917 edition of the Report of the Ontario Bureau of Archives, and you just know that the ancestors of C.M. Burton somehow called out to him from the beyond:

    The records of the early courts of Upper Canada … had long been given up as irrecoverably lost, and the story of their finding is told in the following ...: "In the summer of 1910, Mr. C. M. Burton, of Detroit, a public spirited investigator of the history of the State of Michigan, and especially of the early days of Detroit, called on me in Toronto and expressed a desire to see the vaults at Osgoode Hall, the home of the High Courts of Ontario. Mr. Burton had asked me before this time to enquire at Osgoode Hall for the records of the Court of Common Pleas for the District of Hesse, or the Western District, which at one time included Detroit. 

    The records had been sought for years in likely and unlikely places, including Osgoode Hall, but could not be found. At his request, I repeated the enquiry, but the oldest of the officials, for fifty-one years the custodian of the oldest vault, knew nothing of them, and stated that two systematic searches at the request of the Attorney General's Office had been made many years before without avail. Mr. Burton's immediate object on the occasion of his visit, however, was to observe the method in use for filing papers preserved. At that time there were no electric lights in the vaults, and lamps were forbidden because of the possibility of accidental explosion. The languid flame of a tallow candle sufficed to show the way, though not to shed sufficient light on the dust-begrimed pigeon holes. 

    Mr. Burton noticed a book of ancient appearance on the top shelf that aroused his curiosity. To get it for him, I climbed on an uncovered deal [i.e. white pine] box filled with old papers that lay on the floor, and reached the volume. The book proved to be one into which letters of the early eighties had been copied by letter press - of no apparent record value. Stepping down I upset the deal box, emptying the contents on the floor. Proceeding to replace the papers, the first article picked up was a paper covered volume similar to the old-fashioned books sometimes used by the township valuators of long ago. My astonishment may be imagined when I discovered that the book was one of the long lost Minute Books of the Court of Common Pleas of the Western District, and there on the first page was the name of the First Judge, the Honourable Wm. Dummer Powell.

    Mr. Burton and Mr. Jackson were standing near me in the narrow vault, the latter holding the candle and telling the Detroit visitor of the age and glory of Osgoode Hall. I suppressed my rising feelings until all the papers had been put back in the box except eight thin folios, one after another of which I had rescued from the orderless heap, tattered, and apparently useless, but in reality of priceless value, being the original records of our oldest constituted Courts for the old Districts of Hesse, Mecklenburg and Luneburg in Upper Canada. 

    I asked Mr. Burton to look at one of the books, remarking that he might feel interested in it. He opened it, and when he saw the holograph of John Munro, a relative, on one of the pages he gave up the effort to appear calm, and in the circumstances was to be excused for having always known that the precious records were there. 

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