MSS 0097. Diaries, Journals, & Ships' Logs

This diary was kept by Ella Pultz Kimball from May 8, 1881, to May 31, 1883. The 262 page volume documents the daily social and domestic activities of a wealthy New York City-area family in the early 1880s.

This diary was kept by Harriet Hemperley of Columbia, Pennsylvania, between May 1868 and May 1869. Hemperley recorded her work as a seamstress, social visits, and attendance at various church services and religious meetings.

This diary was kept by bookseller Robert Miller of Montréal, Québec, between 1850 and 1851.

This volume and its associated materials contain attendance records from School District 83 in Kent County, Delaware. The records were kept from 1878-1879 and 1881-1883.

These two volumes are the diaries of John Reed Nicholson of Dover, Delaware, for the years 1882 and 1889.

These nine volumes are a journal and scrapbook kept by Jessie Southard Parker of Belmont, Massachusetts, from 1899 to 1916. Parker wrote extensively about her social and family life, thoughts on current events, and belief in Christian Science, supplementing her entries with theatrical programs, photographs, newspaper clippings, and other pieces of ephemera.

This diary was kept by Dudley Swift, a resident of Hampden County, Massachusetts, near the town of Chicopee, between 1784 and 1844. He recorded brief entries about the weather and agricultural patterns.

This manuscript volume is a family journal kept by George Washington Jonson and members of the Swan family of Easton, Massachusetts, between September 1838 and January 1839. Also included are nine letters from Louisa Sophia Johnson Swan, Jr., to Jonson, her uncle.

This manuscript contains the travel diary of C.B. Thomas, a Baptist missionary in Burma, kept between January 24 and May 7, 1883.

These four manuscripts are volumes of Lucy E. Upson’s diary, which describes life in Kosciusko County, Indiana, between 1875 and 1892. Upson remarked on the weather, her chores, visitors, various religious services, and other aspects of rural life.

This weather diary was kept by Benjamin Webb of Suffolk County, New York, between 1855 and 1863.

American Selina C. Washburn kept this travel diary during her 1854 voyage from Boston, Massachusetts, to London, England, and Paris, France. Selina and her sister Sarah accompanied their father Cyrus Washburn on a business trip and her diary records her impressions of persons encountered, shops visited, and sightseeing excursions.

J. C. Welsh’s manuscript journal comprises 120 pages, written in ink, on four sewn but unbound signatures. His journal reports on the physical and cultural challenges of traveling from Boston, Massachusetts, to British Guyana and living there while pursuing legal business in 1817 through 1819.

This mid-eighteenth century physician’s notebook, most likely English in origin, contains medicinal and food receipts, prescriptions, and contemporary treatments for several common illnesses.

Thomas Coode’s nineteenth-century manuscript recipe book contains instructions for domestic and trade processes ranging from plate cleaning and preserving meat to preparing fireworks and varnishes. The volume also features notes on book-binding and glazing mezzotint prints.

This undated, handwritten manuscript includes cookery and medical recipes. Most likely early nineteenth-century American in origin, it features twenty pages with approximately forty-five entries of cooking and medicinal recipes and additional household tips.

Prominent Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Quaker James Moon recorded his travels in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia between 1742 and 1792 in this brief, handwritten account. He includes dates, names of persons encountered, destinations, and routes, as well as lists of Quaker meeting places, particularly the Shrewsbury Yearly Meeting in New Jersey.

Titled "Receipts for dyeing wool and woolen cloths," this manuscript book of receipts is attributed to John Rauch, dated 1814.

Philadelphia chemist John Davis’s manuscript book is filled with medicinal formulae and numerous laid-in receipts and household hints. There are over 135 items as varied as medicinal receipts, graduation announcements, poetry, sketches, and a silhouette.

This nineteenth-century American manuscript contains approximately eighty-five pages of medicinal formulae and household receipts along with notes and sketches of plants and their medicinal properties. The volume dates from approximately 1861 to 1877 and may have been created by a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, resident with a medical or scientific background.

This trigonometry and surveying notebook belonged to Samuel M. Talley, who lived in Brandywine Hundred, near Wilmington, Delaware, in the nineteenth century. The notebook features mathematical problems and solutions related to the principles of trigonometry and the surveying of land. The latter part of the volume contains an account book listing wages due for farm labor.

The journal of Henry W. Marston chronicles his daily activities for 1875 as a student and a junior scribe in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The entries include observations of the weather, schoolwork, travel, conversations, family events, and Marston's attendance of the Centennial Exhibition.

This travel diary documents the mid-nineteenth-century European excursion of American William A. Ingram. Along with several other young male friends, he visited Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, and Austria.

This travel diary documents the honeymoon tour of continental Europe taken by American Harriet S. Crothers in the fall of 1846. Entries describe tourist activities she and her husband undertook while visiting major cities in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and Czechoslovakia.