Deeds/Abstracts: The History of a London Lot

Geoffrey Hayes is an associate professor of history at the University of
Waterloo.

In May 1968, artist Greg Curnoe and his family moved to 38 Weston
Street, London, Ontario. Well before Augustus Jones surveyed the lands
in 1793, 38 Weston Street had most likely been the site of a wide range
of First Nations activity. It was partly to restore the Native element
in London’s local history that Curnoe began to dig—both literally
and figuratively—into 38 Weston Street. His research is presented as
an extensive list of items drawn from surveys, private records, and a
wide reading of secondary sources.

Most of the book is devoted to Curnoe’s chronological entries, which
are organized into four periods spanning the years 8600 BC to 1991. The
first section provides a broad overview of the aboriginal period, before
Governor Simcoe changed the name of the river that flows at the back of
the property from La Tranche (Askunessippi) to the Thames in 1792. The
surveyors’ descriptions in the next three sections reinforce the
concept of ownership that is so alien to Native culture. So technical
are many of the entries that Curnoe uses a heart-shaped symbol to remind
his audience of people or events that “directly touched the fate of 38
Weston.” Three appendices describe the various Weston, Gumb, and
Knowles family members who lived on or near the lot from the 1850s to
the 1960s.

Less a history than a collage, this valuable book conveys a keen sense
of the wide human experience—from floods to bankruptcies to land
disputes—lived out on this piece of real estate. It also reminds us of
the limits of memory. How easily the land at 38 Weston Street conceals
its former uses and structures; how quickly the memories of its
occupants pass away, and with them the very concept of ownership.
Nothing makes this point more clearly than Greg Curnoe’s own death in
1992.