This discrete item is a hand-made recruitment poster, likely used during the campaign to enlist men for the second contingent of the 5th Field Company in 1916. There are photographs sewn onto a piece of khaki canvas depicting the winter quarters of the 5th Field Company, the Barriefield camp, groups of engineers, and a watertower.
The journal/commonplace book contains roughly 40 pages. There appear to be pages which have been cut out, and material has been pasted in. The content is varied and the book seems to have been used and reused at different points in Stretton's travels as there is a mix of European drawings with those of Canada. There are eight documentary pen and ink watercolours depicting Canadian content: "Carioling on the St. Lawrence" (1823); "Canadian Marche donc Cariole"; "Colonel Frobishers Cariole"; "Islands of Ice off the Banks of Newfoundland, June 7th and 10th, 1818"; "Falls of the Chaudiere near Quebec, Canada" (1824); "Pageantry (French-Canadian) Aug 14, 1823"; and, "A Quebec Indian and Squaw" (1824). Also included is a copy of a hand drawn plan of Quebec (city) for 1824, and wash over pencil (graphite) drawings of: a cave scene at Quebec; a waterfall at Quebec; the Albany Barracks; Tintern Abbery, Wales; Stonehenge; and a few other drawings with non-Canadian content. There are snippets of recorded weather, a recipe for lavender water, clippings on various subjects (curling being one), and a rather lengthy report of the Halifax Sledge Club from 1843.
A letter from H. Johnston to John Reade regarding a new book - The Gift of Old and New - that may have been written by a previous editor of the Montreal Gazette.
The fonds consists of a photocopy of the Tweedsmuir History compiled by the Inverary branch of the Ontario Women's Institute. The History relates various farm histories, information about the Kingston and Perth Road, the history of the village proper as well as various aspects of the social history of the area, as well as family trees for the Lake, Barr and Duff families.
