Sunday, February 16th, 2025

During the spring and summer of 1838, prisoners in the Toronto jail crafted small boxes out of firewood, and decorated them with words and pictures.

The men had been jailed for participating in the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion to free Canada, led by William Lyon MacKenzie.

Some of the messages on the boxes were sentimental greetings to family members; while others were religious.

But many were political.

“They are not penitent,” said Canadian historian, Chris Raible, of the prisoners. “[The messages] are political and they tell the stories of people who are in prison asking not to be forgotten.”

Recently, the Dufferin Museum acquired a box made by a prisoner named John J. McNulty in the Toronto jail, before he was transported to the Van Diemen’s Land prisoner colony in Tasmania.

On Sunday, Chris will discuss McNulty’s story at the Dufferin County Museum Archives, in a presentation about the prisoner’s boxes.

Chris started compiling an inventory of all known prisoner boxes eight years ago. He began with 17 boxes that were owned by the City of Toronto and private collectors.

A search with the help of John Carter, a Museum Consultant for the province, and Darryl Withrow, a volunteer wood crafter with the Pickering Village Museum, produced 90 boxes.

These boxes were documented in a book, From Hands Striving to be Free, written by the three men.

Since then, more boxes have emerged from the, er, woodwork. At last count, Chris said there were 132 made by at least 70 different prisoners. While most were made at the Toronto jail, some came from Fort Henry in Kingston.

Although we now know the origin of the prisoner’s boxes, the mystery of their appearance remains. There are no known boxes before or after this group of prisoners constructed their creation, Chris said.

The Story of the Prisoner’s Box
with Chris Raible
Sunday, May 25, 2 pm
Dufferin County Museum Archives
Admission: $5
www.dufferinmuseum.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *