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There is no information available about van Aernum except the lease.

Richard Allen is an educator, author and politician. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. on 10 February 1929 and educated at the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, the University of Saskatchewan and Duke University. He joined McMaster University in 1974 and held the rank of Professor in the History Department from 1976 to 1987.

He was first elected as a New Democratic Party (NDP) member of the Ontario Legislature for Hamilton West in 1982. Successful re-elections followed in 1985, 1987, and 1990. He assumed responsibility for many portfolios when the NDP was in opposition: 1982-1987, critic for Colleges and Universities; 1983-1985, critic for Cultural Affairs; 1983-1987, critic for Education; 1985-1987, critic for Skills Development; 1987-1990, critic for Community and Social Services and the Office of Disabled Persons as well as Francophone Affairs. When the NDP formed the government in 1990 he became the Minister of Colleges and Universities, Minister of Skills Development, and Minister Responsible for International Trade, and, then in 1994, he became Minister of Housing, a post he held until the government was defeated in 1995.

William M. Allison, accompanied by his wife, arrived in Hamilton, Ontario on 10 April 1845. The couple had previously lived in Yorkshire, England. After briefly working for another man, he set up his own business as a blacksmith at Ryckman's Corners, near Hamilton, Ontario. According to the 1861 census, they had three sons and a daughter. After Allison's death in 1882, the business was taken over by his son, Isaac.

George Anne Bellamy, actress, was born in Fingal, Ireland, on 23 April 1731, possibly 1733, although 1727 is a likely possibility as well. She appeared on the stage in both London and Dublin in the era of Sheridan and Garrick. Her life, however, was marked by gambling and extravagance and her later years by suffering and debt. Her memoirs were published in 1785 in six volumes, An Apology for the Life of George Anne Bellamy. She died on 16 February 1788.

Edmund Blunden, English poet and critic, born in London on 1 November 1896. He was educated at Christ's Hospital and Queen's College, Oxford. He spent many years at Oxford University teaching. In 1943 he joined the staff of the Times Literary Supplement. At the time of his death, 20 January 1974, he was a professor at Oxford.

C.C. Brant was a teamster hauling logs from a logging dump in Whitney, Ontario in the winter of 1919. Shortly thereafter he moved to Fort St. John, British Columbia. In the winter of 1922 he had been there long enough to apply for a land patent. He still had his horses but was also ranching at the Z Cross Ranch. He was considering going into a partnership with others so that he would be free to return back to Ontario for a visit.

David Diamant is the pseudonym of David Erlich, a Jewish communist and committed member of the underground resistance during World War II.

John Drinkwater, poet, playwright, and actor was born in Leystonstone, Essex on 1 June 1882 and educated at Oxford High School. He was co-founder of an amateur dramatic society, the Pilgrim Players, in 1907. He went on to become the manager of the then fledgling Birmingham Repertory Theatre where he also acted. He is best known for a series of historical plays beginning with Abraham Lincoln. He died in London on 25 March 1937.

Nora Mabel Duncan, nee Dann, was born in 1881. She published a few volumes of poetry with the North Shore Press in North Vancouver, B.C. The poems in this collection were presumably written while she was on vacation in Quebec. In 1908, she married banker Wallace Craig Duncan (1871-1937). They had two daughters in Calgary, before moving to Vancouver. She was on a train, headed west to attend her daughter's wedding when she suddenly collapsed and died.

Lawrence Durrell, novelist and poet, was born on 12 February 1912 in Julundur, India, the son of Lawrence Samuel Durrell, a British civil engineer. He was educated at the College of St. Joseph, Darjeeling, and St. Edmund's College in Canterbury. In 1939 under the auspices of the British Council, he taught at the British Institute in Athens. He became Foreign Press Service Officer at the British Information Office in Cairo in 1941 and press attaché with the same office in 1944. Through his contacts in the diplomatic service during the war, Durrell met Dudley and Mary Honor. His most well known work, The Alexandria Quartet, was started shortly after the war and published from 1957 to 1960. Durrell died on 7 November 1990 in Sommieres, France.

Jane Elliott was married to Thomas F[rederick] Elliott (1808-1880). Thomas F. Elliott was born in London in 1808 and educated at Harrow. He entered the Colonial Office and from 1835 to 1837 served as secretary to the Earl of Gosford's Commission of Inquiry in Canada. In 1833 he marrried Jane Perry, the daughter of James Perry, the owner and editor of the Morning Chronicle. The Elliotts left Canada in 1837 when he was appointed chief of the first Department of Emigration in England. Jane Elliott died in 1861.

Herbert Stuart Finn, of Chesley, Ontario, served in the First World War. He was hospitalized due to a gas attack in France, eventually returning to Canada, but passed away in 1919 at a military hospital in the Ontario Reformatory School in Guelph.

Theodore Goodridge Roberts, journalist, editor, poet and novelist, was born on 7 July 1877 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. He was the younger brother of Sir Charles G.D. Roberts. He was briefly educated at the University of New Brunswick. Widely travelled, he lived for a time in the West Indies. His best-known novel is The Harbor Master published in 1912 as The Toll of the Tides. He died on 24 February 1953 in Digby, Nova Scotia.

Robert Graves was born at Wimbledon on 25 July 1895 and educated at Charterhouse and St. John's College, Oxford. His powerful autobiography, Goodbye to All That was published in 1929. He is known for both his historical novels, beginning with I, Claudius and Claudius the God in 1934 and his poetry which was collected several times, including 1955 and again in 1975. He died at his home in Deyá, Marjorca on 7 December 1985.

Edward Burnaby Greene, poet and translator, was the son of Edward Burnaby and Elizabeth Greene Burnaby. On the death of his aunt, 30 December 1740, while he was still an infant, he inherited his grandfather's fortune. An Act of Parliament the following year allowed him to assume the surname of Greene. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His literary attempts, both translations from Greek and Latin poets as well as imitations of Thomas Gray and William Shenstone, are not well regarded. He died on 12 March 1788.

Grey Owl was born Archibald Stansfeld Belaney in 1888 in Hastings, England. He moved to Canada in 1906 and became a guide and trapper in Northern Ontario. It was under the influence of his lover, Anahareo, that Grey Owl became a nature conservationist, adopting the persona of an Ojibwa man. He also became an author of books about the north and Ojibwa culture. Near the end of his life he undertook lecture tours of Britain and the United States. Grey Owl died in Prince Albert, Sask., in 1938.

Charles W. Hall was born presumably in England and was a member of the 93rd Derbyshire Regiment. On 11 December 1861, he boarded the steamer H.M.S. Windsor in Dublin, Ireland and set sail for Liverpool. On 12 December 1861, Hall transferred and served aboard H.M.S. Australasian, another steamer, and along with a regiment of 850 and an artillery of 270, set sail for Canada. 1 February 1862 marked Hall's arrival in Hamilton, Ontario.

Richard C. Hilborn was born on 10 May 1918 in Kitchener, Ontario to Percy Richard Hilborn and Gertrude Roos Wells. He was educated at Upper Canada College, in Toronto and the Royal Military College in Kingston. He graduated from the Royal Military College in 1939, immediately joined the Toronto Scottish Regiment and then went overseas to England for the Second World War. Hilborn met John Jacob Astor (later Baron) during the Second World War and a friendship ensued between him and the Astor family. Richard married Laurette Parsons (6 June 1945) after the end of the War. Richard returned to Preston (now Cambridge), Ontario to work in his father's furniture factory, The Preston Furniture Company and Canadian Office and School Furniture Co. Laurette arrived in Canada in January 1946 and they settled in Preston. (Taken from It's Been Fun by Richard C. Hilborn.)

Thomas Alfred Hollick was an important collector of eighteenth century books, and particularly of the works of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). At the sale of his books in May 1980, McMaster University Library acquired seventeen items for its Swift collection.

Ghizi Kirshen-Baras, an actress, was born in Romania in 1935. She graduated from the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Bucharest. In 1962 she moved to Israel. She married ca. 1965 Joseph Ijaky, a painter and set designer. She was mainly a stage actress using her birth name and then her married name. She appeared in one short film, “Strange Holiday”, produced by the Women’s International Zionist Organization in Israel in 1963, using the name “Gisella Kirschen”. She died on 31 December 1971.