Oakes family fonds
https://heritagecollections.elgin.ca/link/archives13558
- Museum / Archive
- Elgin County Archives
- Part Of
- Oakes family fonds
- Description Level
- Fonds
- GMD
- textual records
- objects
- Date Range
- 1863-1872
- Storage Location
- R7 S2 Sh2 B5
- Museum / Archive
- Elgin County Archives
- Part Of
- Oakes family fonds
- Description Level
- Fonds
- Storage Room
- Archives Storage Rm. 107
- Storage Location
- R7 S2 Sh2 B5
- GMD
- textual records
- objects
- Date Range
- 1863-1872
- Physical Description
- 4 cm of textual records
- 1 leather wallet : 17.5 x 27 cm (open); 17 x 8 cm (closed)
- History / Biographical
- Garrett Oakes was born in New Brunswick on September 10, 1791, and moved with his family to the Long Point Settlement on the north shore of Lake Erie between 1803 and 1805. By 1811, Oakes had petitioned for and been granted land on the Talbot Road in Yarmouth Township, where he was one of the earliest settlers. In the course of his long life, Garrett Oakes was an inventor, coffin maker, mechanical engineer, manufacturer of spinning wheels, school teacher, musician, ventriloquist, sailor, woodsman, and Justice of the Peace. Between 1873 and 1879 he published his memoirs in the form of a series of thirty one articles published in the Canadian Home Journal and the St. Thomas Journal. These reminiscences form an oral history of the early days in the Talbot Settlement and are considered unique in that they provide a true and accurate description of the time period and of the difficulties of pioneer life. With his first wife Maria Long, whom he married in March 1812, Oakes had eleven children, including sons Robert Bruce (1832-1891) and William Wallace. Maria Long Oakes died on November 21, 1848, and the next year Oakes married Julia Hitchcock. Garrett Oakes died April 6, 1881 and was buried in the New Sarum Baptist Cemetery.
- Custodial History
- The records comprising the fonds were in the custody of Robert Bruce Oakes, Oakdale, California, grandson of the Robert Bruce Oakes who owned some of the records, and great-grandson of Garrett Oakes. The records were donated to the Elgin County Pioneer Museum on August 12, 1980, by Mrs. Julia Ketzbeck, 243 East Heather Court, Highland, Michigan, 48031, on Mr. Oakes behalf. The records formed part of the collection of the Elgin County Pioneer Museum/ Elgin County Museum under file no. 80-3481. Transferred to Elgin County Archives, May, 2007.
- Scope and Content
- Fonds consists of diaries created and maintained by William Wallace Oakes and Robert Bruce Oakes in the course of operating farms and working as day labourers in the vicinity of St. Thomas and New Sarum, Ontario. Fonds also includes a leather wallet belonging to Robert Bruce Oakes.
- Name Access
- Oakes (family)
- St. Thomas (Ont.)
- New Sarum (Ont.)
- Subject Access
- Agriculture
- Farm life
- Farming
- Diaries
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