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Ruth Catherine Allen was born in 1918 in Cramahe Township, the daughter of Durwood and Beatrice Allen (nee Hennessey). The Durwood Allen family lived on a farm in the Castleton, Ontario area. Ruth attended Peterborough Normal School in 1938 attaining her Teachers Certificate. During the course of her teaching career she taught in Morganston, Frankford, Napanee and South Cramahe Public Schools.

Ruth and Kenneth married 30 June 1947 in Brighton, Ontario. They had two daughters, Mary Margaret and Kathryn Ann, and lived in the community of Salem. Ruth died in a car accident on June 29, 1979. After her death, Ken married Joyce Blakley. Joyce died in 1985 and Ken in 2007.

(Taken from information supplied by the donor).

Sydney Bellingham was born in 1808 in Castlebellingham Ireland and briefly lived in Douro Township, Upper Canada. In the summer of 1824, Bellingham arrived at the homestead of Thomas and Frances Stewart. Thomas was his uncle; the brother of Sydney's mother Elizabeth Jane (or Jane Elizabeth) Stewart Bellingham. Sydney remained in Douro as a farm hand until 1827. He then obtained employment in Montreal, moved there and spent the majority of his life there until 1878. He was a merchant and politician in Quebec. He died in 1900 back in Castlebellingham which he had inherited.

Janet P. Bews was a Professor in the Ancient History and Classics Department, Trent University, from 1966 to 1999. She received her BA from Queen's and her MA and Ph.D. from Royal Holloway College, London. Her scholarly interests included Tacitus and Vergil, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, Dante, C.S. Lewis, Gilgamesh, and Charles Williams. Bews was Senior Don (1966) and Senior Tutor (1982, 1986) at Traill College, and was Chair of the Classics Department (1974-1978). Bews retired from Trent University in 1999 and was awarded Professor Emeritus at that time. She died on August 27th, 2000.

Hazel Bird was a recognized naturalist known especially for her work in restoring the bluebird population of Northumberland County. Born in Northumberland County, Bird served in World War II where she met her husband, Tom Bird. The couple resided in Harwood, Ontario and had seven children; in the 1950s Tom Bird died due to a boating accident. In the 1960s, Hazel Bird initiated the Eastern Bluebird restoration project in Northumberland County and continued to coordinate and lead this project for almost 40 years; with the help of volunteers, “The Bluebird Lady,” as she was sometimes referred to, erected, monitored, and recorded information about the bird boxes until an accident in 2004 prevented her from doing so and resulted in the termination of the project. Bird was involved in many naturalist organizations in Ontario including the Ontario Outdoors Educator’s Council, The Willow Beach Field Naturalists and the Willow Beach Young Naturalists. She also taught classes, first as a volunteer, and then as a paid employee at the Laurie Lawson Outdoor Education Centre in Cobourg and was recognized for her work in 1996 receiving the Ontario Eastern Bluebird Society Conservation Award. In that same year it was announced by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife of Canada that the Eastern Bluebird, which had been designated as a “rare bird” since 1984, was no longer considered a species at risk. Bird died 1 February 2009. In 2012 the Nature Conservancy of Canada designated the Hazel Bird Nature Reserve in Ontario’s Rice Lake Plains in her honour.

Margaret Love was born September 15, 1819 in Dublin, Ireland to Michael Love and Margaret McGowan. In 1819 the family left for Newfoundland where Margaret's father had been posted. In 1824 her father died and the family returned to Ireland. Her mother died in 1845. At this point Margaret's sister Ann, who was married and living in Canada, sent money to Margaret to emigrate to Canada. During her first year in Canada Margaret worked out in service to other families. On July 10, 1846 she married Robert Bird. Like other pioneers they did much of the work themselves. She died while she was in her nineties.

Richard Birdsall was born in 1799 at Thornton-le-dale, England, and educated at Londesborough, Yorkshire. His family intended a naval career for him upon graduation. Instead, when he graduated in 1817, he emigrated to Canada. Due to his education, he qualified for a position as a fully-accredited land surveyor in Canada West. In May of 1820, he was commissioned to survey the Newcastle District, where he remained for the rest of his life and became a very prominent man. The Newcastle District was comprised of the counties of Northumberland and Durham and included which would later become the counties of Peterborough, Victoria, and Haliburton. In 1821, he married Elizabeth Burnham, daughter of Zaccheus Burnham, who was a prominent early settler in the District. From his father-in-law, Birdsall bought 920 acres of land at the northeast end of Rice Lake (Lot 1, Concession 1, Asphodel Township) and made his home there. His wife died in a tragic fall in 1827 leaving Birdsall with four young daughters. He remarried in 1836 to Charlotte Jane Everett of Belleville and had four more children with his second wife; two of these were Richard Everett Birdsall (1837-1877) and Francis (Frank) Birdsall (1838-1914). Between the years of 1827 and 1836, Birdsall carried out most of his surveying work, including the survey for the town of Peterborough. In 1831, he was commissioned Captain of the fourth Regiment of Northumberland Militia and he led the Asphodel contingent when the militia was called out in the Rebellion of 1837. Later he was an officer in the Peterborough Regiment. Birdsall was also a Commissioner of the Court of Requests and a Justice of the Peace. When the Colborne District was created in 1841, he was the councillor for Asphodel and in 1850, when districts were replaced by counties, he represented Asphodel at the Peterborough County Council as its first Reeve. He continued in this position until his death on January 20, 1852.

Pat Bolger ( - 2007) was a teacher/librarian at Renfrew Collegiate.

Henri Bourassa, journalist and politician, was born at Montreal, Quebec, on September 1, 1868, the son of Napoleon Bourassa and Azalie Papineau, and the grandson of Louis Joseph Papineau. He was educated by tutors, and became a journalist. He was a contributor to Le Nationaliste, a journal published in Montreal; and in 1896 he was elected to represent Labelle as an independent Liberal in the House of Commons. He became a pronounced "Nationalist" and in 1910 he founded Le Devoir, a Nationalist newspaper in Montreal, of which he became the editor-in-chief, and he continued as editor until he broke with many of the Nationalists, and resigned from the paper in 1932. Bourassa has been described as a man of erratic impulses. This is exemplified in his resignation from the House of Commons in 1907 so he could sit in the Quebec Legislative Assembly. He remained in the Assembly from 1908 to 1912. He sat once again in the House of Commons from 1925 to 1935, when he was defeated in his old constituency, Labelle. Bourassa was an outstanding political figure, and a first-rate orator. He also published many pamphlets on political questions, in both French and English. Henri Bourassa died at Outremont, Quebec, on August 30, 1952.

John Merton Bowes was born in California in 1927. He first became a licensed real estate agent in 1950 at the age of 23. He began working in Toronto where he was the manager of Ridout Real Estate. He later moved to Peterborough, Ontario and founded his own firm, now known as Re/Max Eastern, in 1980. He went on to collaborate with Bill Cocks and together they established Bowes and Cocks Ltd., of which he was the president for 15 years. Bowes dedicated his career to ensuring that the development of Peterborough’s real estate was a reflection of the City’s needs as it doubled in population from 40,000 to 80,000 citizens in a few decades. One of his most notable moments includes his initial proposal of a toll road linking the QEW, southwest of Toronto, with Highway 115/7 in the 1990s. John Merton Bowes was the author of two books: Dreams For Sale – Make Me an Offer and Greater Peterborough – Building A Metropolis in Kawartha Cottage Country. He died in Peterborough in 2021.

Kathleen (Kay) Richmond Barclay Bowley was born in 1922 in Ottawa, Ontario, and was one of four children born to parents Robert George Douglas Barclay (1895-1969) and Sarah Richmond Stovel (1900-1977). Raised in western Canada, she later lived in Toronto where she married Robert Eric Bowley in 1954; together they had two children and moved to Peterborough in 1963.

Kathleen Bowley was as a member of the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS or “WRENS”) and served in England and Belgium during World War II, from 1942 to 1945. She earned a B.A. in English and History at Queen’s University, graduating in 1949. Throughout her life, Bowley was an advocate for the higher education of women.

Bowley was an active volunteer in the Peterborough community serving in many capacities with several organizations and clubs: Kawartha Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society, Peterborough Historical Society, Lang Pioneer Village, St. John Anglican Church, Peterborough Symphony Orchestra choir, and the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) Peterborough Club. Bowley was also an avid genealogist. She died in Peterborough in 2010.

Robert E. Bowley was born in Hagersville, Ontario and moved to Peterborough in 1963. He married Kathleen Richmond Barclay and was a chemistry teacher, author, and historian. Bowley had an avid interest in stamp collecting and postal history, and was a volunteer postmaster in 1980 at Lang Pioneer Village, Keene. He was also president of the Peterborough Historical Society, and established Rebel Publishing in 1995 in order to publish his version of Mutiny on the Bounty.

Mossom Boyd was born in India and son of Gardiner Boyd who was Superior Officer to Colonel Blackall, came to the Bobcaygeon region in Verulam Township in 1833. Over the years, he built up a successful lumber mill, and became one of the most prominent men in the community. When he died in 1883, he was survived by two sons, Mossom M. and W.T.C. Boyd who carried on the family business.

Annie Sheila Boyd was the daughter of Mossom Martin Boyd and Ida Lillian de Grassi, and the granddaughter of Mossom Boyd. She never married.

Winnett Boyd was born on October 17, 1916 in North Wales where his father, Winnett Wornibe Boyd (of Bobcaygeon, Ontario), was serving in the First World War. His mother, Marjorie Sterne St. George, was American. In 1917, Marjorie and the children moved to Canada. Growing up, Boyd lived in Bobcaygeon, Port Hope, Bermuda and Toronto. In 1935, he began studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Toronto's School of Practical Science. He graduated with a B.Sc. in 1939 and was offered a staff scholarship by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. He completed one year of graduate studies at MIT as well as a Teaching Assistantship.

Between 1940 and 1943, Boyd worked in the field of engineering for the Demerara Bauxite Company in British Guiana and the Aluminum Company of Canada Limited in Montreal and Shawinigan Falls. In the fall of 1934, Boyd joined the Royal Canadian Navy, and was soon seconded to the National Research Council. In 1943 and 1944, Boyd studied jet engine design in the United Kingdom on behalf of the National Research Council. In 1944, he began working for Turbo Research Limited and was in charge of the Engine Design Section. Turbo Research Limited had been requested by the federal government to begin building a jet engine for Canada. Boyd and his team began designing the TR.3 in 1945. Soon, this project was abandoned in favour of a smaller design, the TR.4, which was later named the Chinook. In 1946, Turbo Research Limited was sold to A.V. Roe Canada. Boyd was transferred to A.V. Roe, where he continued work on the TR.4 as Chief Designer of the Gas Turbine Division and Assistant Chief Engineer. In March of 1948, the Chinook Engine was officially started for the first time. Concurrently, Boyd designed the TR.5, which was later named the Orenda Engine. He began the design of this larger engine in September of 1946, and it ran for the first time in February of 1949. Boyd resigned from A.V. Roe in 1950.

In 1951, Boyd founded Winnett Boyd Limited as a commission agency of consulting engineers. At about the same time, he started working as a Consulting Engineer for the C.D. Howe Company. At C.D. Howe, Boyd was the Chief Mechanical Engineer, and was responsible for the design of the National Research Universal (NRU) Nuclear Reactor. The NRU is currently operating at the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited plant in Chalk River, Ontario. The NRU is still considered one of the world's finest research reactors and produces a large supply of isotopes used for medical reasons.

In 1956, Boyd began designing the Daniels-Boyd Nuclear Steam Generator (D-BNSG) based on Farrington Daniels' work. After two years of promoting the D-BNSG, the project was dismissed. This led to Boyd's involvement in the nuclear controversy with his paper, "The Promise and the Prospects" in 1959.

In 1959, Boyd became the first President of Arthur D. Little's Canadian affiliate in Toronto. He worked for Arthur D. Little until his retirement in 1981, while maintaining his work at Winnett Boyd Limited. Boyd ran for the Progressive-Conservative Party in the 1972 General Election in the York-Scarborough Riding. He used this campaign to publicly discuss the ideology of his friend, Louis O. Kelso.
Boyd attended the Pugwash Conference in 1965 and 1967. The purpose of the Pugwash conferences is to discuss peaceful alternatives for science and international affairs. Boyd was a founding member of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome, which is also concerned with world affairs.

In 1974, Boyd co-founded BMG Publishing with Kenneth McDonald and Orville Gaines. BMG published eight books pertaining to Canadian politics between 1975 and 1979.

Boyd began developing a bicycle brake in the 1970s. In the early 1990s he built bicycles called the BMG Suburban, equipped with the back-pedalling brake he invented. Boyd sells these bicycles independently.

In 1948, Boyd was the youngest-ever recipient of the University of Toronto's Engineering Alumni Medal for his accomplishments in the field of jet engine design.

In 1954, he was admitted to the grade of Associate Fellow of the Canadian Aeronautical Institute. He also received a certificate of recognition from the Corporation of Professional Engineers of Quebec in 1959.

In 1981, Boyd was inducted into the University of Toronto's Engineering Alumni Hall of Distinction.
Boyd's writings were published widely in a variety of periodicals. He also had three books published: "Personal Thoughts: A Series on the Canadian Prospect" (1966), "The National Dilemma and the Way Out" with Kenneth McDonald (1975), and "Rebel Engineer" (1998).
Winnett Boyd died in 2017 in Lindsay, Ontario.

William (Willie) Thornton Cust Boyd was the son of Mossom Boyd (1815-1883) and Letitia McGhee Cust (1819-1881) of Bobcaygeon, Ontario.

Along with his step-brother Mossom Martin Boyd (1855-1914), William T.C. Boyd operated the large family-owned enterprises founded by their father, of which the major were lumbering, Hereford cattle breeding, and cattle/buffalo cross-breeding. The Boyds were involved with the planning of the Lindsay, Bobcaygeon and Pontypool Railway, and with the Trent Valley Navigation Steamship Company, of which William T.C. Boyd was President from 1900 to 1904. Boyd was also an active partner in the firm of Boyd and Company along with his step-brother Mossom and cousin John Macdonald. From 1897 to 1899 he served as counsellor for the village of Bobcaygeon, and from 1900 to 1901 as reeve. He married Meta Bridgman in 1889, and had 8 children.

Captain John C. Boylen was paymaster and assistant adjutant of the 127th Battalion, Queen's York Rangers during the World War I. He compiled a war diary from the weekly reports of Headquarters Officers and O.C. Companies. Boylen also wrote news articles on the York Rangers. He was, at one time, secretary for the Ontario Historical Society and Mayor. He was the author of several books including Castle Frank, 1956, and York Township: a historical summary, 1954.

John A. Bradshaw was a crown attorney and clerk of the peace for the City of Peterborough from 1948 to 1975. John researched the Bradshaw family and he was able to trace the Bradshaw lineage as early as 660 A.D., with a connection to the Sutton Hoo ship which was discovered in Britain in 1939. John was very successful in tracing many of his ancestors throughout the centuries, from Haigh Hall in England, 1295, when Sir William de Bradshaigh was owner, to a succession of baronets, captains, knights and earls. There is a noteworthy connection, by marriage, with the Fraser family originally of Scotland, of which Simon Fraser was a descendent. The ancestry of the Fraser family is extensively presented in this fonds as well.

Carrie Brady was a student taught by the Sisters of Loretto in Lindsay, Ontario. The school building later became the first Motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peterborough. The Loretto Convent was built in 1874 but burnt down in 1884. (Taken from: Lindsay, Past and Present, Souvenir of Old Home Week")

William Arthur Breyfogle was born in Toronto in 1905. He moved with his parents to Peterborough in 1910. He went to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and graduated with a Rhodes Scholarship in 1928. He attended Magdalen College in Oxford and later attended the University of Munich in Germany. He married Elizabeth Hopwood in 1939. He had his first short story published in 1932 in the North American Review. He had numerous works published in such magazines as Macleans, Colliers, Toronto Star Weekly, and many others. At the time of his death he had begun to write a detective novel called The Phoenix and the Tavern. William (Bill) Breyfogle died of anaphylactic shock from a bee sting in 1958.

George W. Bridges married, had a number of children and his family lived in Jamaica. When his wife deserted her family she took with her two children, the oldest son and daughter, and left behind three (four?) young daughters and an infant son. When George eventually followed his wife to England he found that he was barred from his family. He managed to regain his eldest daughter. Unfortunately all his daughters drowned upon his return to Jamaica. He eventually moved to Canada but due the climate's effect upon his young son he moved to a more temperate climate. He went to Palermo, Naples and eventually Malta. His youngest son William joined the British Navy and was always with his father when possible. George's wife died at age fifty-five at which point George found out a little about why she had deserted him in 1834.

Ted Brock was Chair of the Camp Tonakela Association.

Reverend Robert Brooking was a Wesleyan Methodist missionary, born in England in 1813. He began his work with his wife, Elizabeth, on the Gold Coast of Africa but left after several years for health reasons. He and his wife were then sent to Canada, where he ministered to the Indigenous peoples at Rice Lake, Rama, Alderville, Canada West, and at Norway House in the Hudson's Bay Territory, until he retired in 1880. Elizabeth Brooking died in 1862. Robert Brooking died in 1893.