Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
Rutherford B.H. Smith fonds
General material designation
Parallel title
Other title information
Title statements of responsibility
Title notes
Level of description
Fonds
Reference code
RC0498
Edition area
Edition statement
Edition statement of responsibility
Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
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1930-1970 (Creation)
Physical description area
Physical description
20 cm of textual records and other materials
Publisher's series area
Title proper of publisher's series
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Numbering within publisher's series
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Archival description area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Rutherford Smith was born on 3 November 1877 in Mount Hope, Ontario, the second son of Joel and Margaret (née Dancey) Smith. He graduated from Caledonia High School and joined his dad in their carriage building business. After his father’s death, Robert Murphy, an archaeologist, helped Smith with his collection in the 1930s. Smith became interested in archaeology after his marriage to Ethel Louise Fothergill in 1929. He enjoyed finding artifacts, researching them and then giving them away. William Cleland and his nephew J.B. Morton convinced Smith to collect artifacts for their value. His wife often helped him catalogue artifacts. He was an active collector from 1933 until 1959. He excavated 64 sites almost entirely within Wentworth County. The largest and most important site from which he collected was the Dwyer Ossuary (AiHa-3) in Beverly Township. After the completion of the dig, he stopped actively collecting. Smith’s main source of artifacts (other than digging himself) was from close friends, William Cleland and Frank Butters, and from farmers as gifts. The Smith artifact collection contains over 10,000 artifacts. The Smith artifact collection, now housed the Ethnography collection in the Department of Anthropology, was willed to McMaster University, shortly after Smith’s death on 10 October 1952 in Guelph, Ontario.
Custodial history
Scope and content
The fonds consists of one box containing 6 files: File 1 Artifact Catalogue; File 2 biographical information (report by S.M. Jamieson, 1970); File 3 correspondence (1943-1948); File 4 Dwyer Ossuary (AiHa-3) (1939-1950); File 5 newspaper clippings (1933-1950); and File 6 photographs (one of E.J. Case) (1938-1948).
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
Practically all of the fonds was acquired by McMaster University in 1952 with Smith’s artifact collection. Fonds acquired by Archives and Research Collections in 2011.
Arrangement
Language of material
Script of material
Location of originals
Availability of other formats
Restrictions on access
There are no access restrictions.
Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication
Finding aids
Associated materials
Researchers may also wish to consult other related records in the McMaster Anthropology Department.
Accruals
No further accruals are expected.
Alternative identifier(s)
Standard number area
Standard number
Access points
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Control area
Description record identifier
RC0498