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CJ Max | all galleries >> Galleries >> JOHNSTON Family Album © 2005 > Homestead Deed, 17 June 1857 - Robert Johnston
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Restored 2018 Cliff. Johnston

Homestead Deed, 17 June 1857 - Robert Johnston

L'Orignal, Ontario, CANADA

This is a restored, full-size image of the original deed for the farm of Robert "Red Robin" Johnston which was just north of Pendleton, Ontario, Canada. Robert occupied the land in 1835, started clearing it, building a shanty, and farming. It was not until October 6, 1845, that he took full ownership of the land. It took him 12 years to pay off the mortgage of 43 pounds and 15 shillings, officially on June 17, 1857; signed by Fred.(Frederick) Widder and W. B. (William Benjamin) Robinson; witnessed by Thos. (Thomas) Collier and Alfred W. Otter.

My thanks go to the Land Records Office in L'Orignal, Ontario, CANADA, and the wonderful lady who found this fragile deed in pieces, assembled them on the copy machine and sent us the images on 2 sheets of paper. Using Photoshop I was able to reassemble the pieces and restore the many damaged pieces into what you see here. The document is approximately 16.05"x14.033". The Seal in the lower right corner did not reproduce. We have the faint outline of it, but no details. I took the liberty of opening up the letters that closed because of running ink, i.e.: e, s, a, m, n, and h so that reading them is much easier. We need to keep in mind that they were using papers that were not up to our modern standards. The commonly used pen was still a goose quill. Inks bled into the papers and splotches of ink were common. Some ink spots I left. The smudges I removed. I tried to not destroy the authenticity of the Deed. Note that none of the lines of type set were straight, even for a few inches. This is the reason that the lines do not look straight - they aren't.


It is said that Robert gave each of his children the equivalent of $50 upon his/her marriage. Considering the wages in the 1860-1885 time period this was quite a feat for him. His land was also glacially deposited sand with a thin layer of top soil. After 3 years or so, the top soil was depleted and yields went down significantly. They did not have commercial fertilizer back then to improve the soil. Several times he mortgaged and sold parts of the farm, but he made sure that each of his children had as good a start on his/her own as he could provide. Over the years he took in family members several times when they hit hard times in addition to caring for Margaret, his handicapped daughter. In my books that certainly qualifies him for greatness. He had 16 children, 11 of whom survived to reach their majority.

The original document is very fragile and large. Thanks to the wonderful staff at the Land Records Office in L'Orignal, Ontario, Canada, it was photocopied in 5 parts which I then scanned, merged, retouched and restored. full exif

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Laura 11-May-2019 22:32
thx so much for sharing. I enjoyed reading and seeing the pictures. Lot's of red heads in my family, now I know where it came from, "Red Robin".