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Crime and
Punishment in
Upper Canada
GENEALOGIST’S REFERENCE SHELF
Crime and
Punishment in
Upper Canada
JANICE NICKERSON
A Researcher’s Guide
Copyright © 2010 Janice Nickerson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Ruth Chernia
Copy editor: Cheryl Hawley
Design: Courtney Horner
Printer: Transcontinental
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Nickerson, Janice C., 1969-
Crime and punishment in Upper Canada : a researcher's guide / by
Janice Nickerson.
(Genealogist's reference shelf)
Co-published by: Ontario Genealogical Society.
Issued also in electronic format.
ISBN 978-1-55488-770-5
1. Crime--Ontario--History--Sources. 2. Criminal justice, Administration
of--Ontario--History--Sources. 3. Court records--Ontario--Archival
resources. 4. Criminal records--Ontario--Archival resources. 5. Crime-
Ontario--Archival resources. 6. Criminal justice, Administration of--Ontario-Archival resources. 7. Upper Canada--Archival resources. 8. Ontario--Archival
resources. 9. Ontario--Genealogy--Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Ontario
Genealogical Society II. Title. III. Series: Genealogist's reference shelf
HV6809.O6N53 2010 364.971309'034 C2010-902406-0
1 2 3 4 5 14 13 12 11 10
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed and bound in Canada.
Ontario Genealogical Society
Suite 102, 40 Orchard View Boulevard
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4R 1B9
tel. (416) 489-0734 fax. (416) 489-9803
[email protected] www.ogs.on.ca
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CONTENTS
Chapter Two: Law Enforcement and Investigation
Chapter Four: Sentencing and Punishment
Chapter Five: Public Opinion: Popular Response and Resistance
Chapter Six: Justice Personnel
Chapter Seven: What Changed After 1841?
Chapter Eight: Research Advice and Records by District
Appendix: Monarchs, Court Terms, and Currency
Glossary
Reading List/Bibliography
Notes
Index
The idea for this book was conceived as I struggled to understand the morass of records created by the Upper Canadian justice system in my work as a professional genealogist.
I was faced with a project in which a client’s ancestor had been accused of criminal activity. How could I find out more? Where should I look? The answers were not easy to find. And as I began examining the original records, I found them difficult to understand because I didn’t know enough about the way the justice system worked. I didn’t know who the personnel were, why they created the records they did, and how to locate those records that survived. I gradually came to believe that a guide for other researchers was needed.
Foremost in my mind were genealogists seeking to learn about their own ancestors’ brushes with the law. However, researchers in other historical fields may also find it useful to have information about the entire system of justice in Upper Canada and its records gathered in one place.
This is not a typical genealogist’s guide, in that it is only partly about the records. I have found that in order to locate and understand the records it is necessary to understand their context. So, the large part of this book is about the history of the criminal justice system in Upper Canada. I walk the reader through the criminal justice process, step-by-step, explaining who did what, and what records were created in the process. As I discuss the process I illustrate it with examples of original records. I’ve also provided an inventory of available records to assist the reader in determining which records are available for which location and time period. Each section also contains mini-case studies featuring the stories of real people whose lives were somehow touched by the justice system — as victims, criminals, witnesses, investigators, adjudicators, and administrators.
I have chosen to restrict my focus to the Upper Canada period, that is the years from 1791 to 1841. There are several reasons for this: First, this period is the formative one for the region that eventually became the province of Ontario. Understanding how the system began is critical to understanding later developments. While I considered expanding the period to cover the entire nineteenth century, I found that there were so many changes during the post-1841 period that it would be difficult to explain them