Editor’s Note

WITH THE BANK OF MONTREAL’S recent removal from its old and well-known premises at King and William Streets, workmen clearing the rear vaults uncovered a small iron safe that had lain undisturbed for upwards of thirty years. Inside was found a single leather-bound book, its cover marked: Private Journal — H. Collier, 1875.

It appears from the Bank’s records that the author, Henry Collier, formerly a clerk at that branch, had ceased to be in its employ by the following year.

The manuscript recounts events regarding the property across the street, Muckleston House, formerly occupied by Mrs. Samuel Muckleston, for sixty years one of the most prominent figures in the civic and charitable life of this city, who died last year at the age of ninety-eight.

The house itself remains, now divided, each floor being separately tenanted, though its façade and local prominence remain unchanged.

Collier’s entries concern events in and around that area of King Street in the autumn of 1875 — events which this newspaper, in common with every other account of this city, entirely failed to report: a disappearance unremarked, the secrets of a household, and thirty years of silence. The journal’s account of what passed that season, and why it lay unrecorded, we leave to speak for itself.

Accordingly, The Daily British Whig has secured the manuscript for serial publication. For the better assistance of our readers, a series of illustrative plates has been prepared by artists in the service of this newspaper, showing the places connected with the narrative.

A word is owing upon a delicate point. The names of private persons appearing in these pages have been let stand as the author wrote them. In reproducing them faithfully this newspaper intends no reflection upon any person now living, nor upon the family long honoured in this city whose name the house yet bears.