Davies/Scroggie collection of Canadian fur trade documents

Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived research value, the availability of staff, competing priorities, and whether or not further accruals are expected. The library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit.

The 1999 Acquisition was processed in 2000, and the contents are listed at the file level in the Collection Contents section, with further details listed in the Appendix. Later acquisitions received a basic level of processing in 2013. Various acquisitions associated with the collection have not been merged and organized as a whole. Each acquisition is described separately in the contents list below, identified by a unique former call number and titled according to the date of acquisition.

Information included in the Description of Papers note and Collection Contents section is drawn from a description written by Alfred Van Peteghem, who collaborated on the book The Development of the Voyageur Contract (1686-1821) published by the Lawrence Lande Foundation for Canadian Historical Research in 1989. In Van Peteghem's descriptions, the outfitter, voyageur, place and date of contract, destination, position, payment, length of contract, and signatures present in each contract are summarized. Peteghem recorded any additions to the contract under the heading "Observations," and included additional research information or noted unusual features of the contracts under the heading "Comments." He also supplied a Lande type for each contract, as a means of correlating the printed form used in the contracts here to the printed forms described in The Development of the Voyageur Contract. The first two letters of the Lande type are a code for the outfitters' name: MF is used for printed forms carrying all incarnations of the M'Tavish, Frobisher & Co. GN is used to indicate that the contract is a generic form, with no company name printed at top. The last two digits reflect the year of printing of the contract. An "h" in parenthesis following the two digits indicates a wintering contract (or hyvernant), and an "h" not in parenthesis following the two digits indicates that the contract was specifically printed for winterers. There are two contracts printed before 1800: one by Joseph Faniant for Francois Lagarde, of St-Ours (number 8 in the appendix), and another also by Faniant for Joseph Pillon (Pilon), of Dautrai (number 9 in the appendix).

Former call numbers: Uncat MSS 259, Uncat MSS 260, Uncat MSS 631, Uncat MSS 840, Uncat MSS 931, Uncat MSS 995, Uncat MSS 1230, Uncat WA MS File Davies.