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.
Notwithstanding the completeness and compactness of the field I have briefly sketched as a logical and correct one for the purposes of a State record office, it is nevertheless equally obvious that Government records alone do not nor can embrace all the archives properly so called of a State or Province. When, therefore, I was asked, eight years ago, to organize a bureau of archives for Ontario, I laid out a much wider plan than that I have referred to, with, however, the State record office always as the central idea. The bureau is therefore double barreled; it draws from the pigeonholes of the departments, and it collects outside material that may throw light on the settlement and development of the Province of Ontario, the source of which is often far afield. For instance, the Province of Quebec (including Ontario), up to 1774 included all to the south and west as far as St. Louis and the Mississippi, and of course, what became in 1791 Upper Canada. The British régime is touched by the French and the French by the Indian.