THE ROBIN BURNS LECTURE

DR. JACK I. LITTLE – Crime and Punishment: The Saga of Morrill Magoon, Borderland Counterfeiter and Forger, 1814–34

Thursday, November 19, 7 PM – Cleghorn Room (McGreer Building), Bishop’s University.

For this Robin Burns lecture, Dr. Jack I. Little will trace the experiences of a forger and counterfeiter of American banknotes in Lower Canada’s border townships during the early 19th century.

After being imprisoned several times, Morrill Magoon was finally condemned to hang, but his sentence was commuted to transportation[CL1.1][EO1.2] for life and he spent much of the rest of his life in Bermuda, living in a convict hulk and laboring on the construction of that colony’s naval dockyard.

Morril Magoon’s story illustrates the limitations of Lower Canada’s criminal justice system, the role of the international border in the American counterfeiting trade, and the nature of the penal system in the pre-penitentiary era.

In addition to being a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University, Jack I. Little is a skilled historian and a prolific writer. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Ottawa.

Named in honor of Dr. Robin Burns (1944 – 1998), the Robin Burns lectures highlight essential research on Eastern Townships heritage. For this edition, the Eastern Townships Resource Centre (ETRC) is proud to partner with the Bishop’s University Humanities Festival. This is a bilingual event: while the lecture will be delivered in English, audience members are encouraged to ask their questions in the official language of their choice. Light refreshments will be served.

The Robin Burns lectures are presented by the ETRC with support from Bishop’s University. For more information, please write to [email protected].