Prisoner’s box
Canadian Museum of History, 986.281a, IMG2009-0063-0016-Dm
This wooden box was made by a prisoner incarcerated during the 1837 Rebellion in Upper Canada and held in the Toronto Gaol. While awaiting trial, some of the prisoners painstakingly carved little boxes from the firewood piled on the cell floors, using pocket knives or pieces of broken glass as primitive tools.