Crime and Punishment in Upper Canada. Janice Nickerson

      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.

      www.dundurn.com

      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

      CONTENTS

Preface

Abbreviations Used

Chapter One: The Context

Chapter Two: Law Enforcement and Investigation

Chapter Three: Adjudication

       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

PREFACE

      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