Manuscripts
Diary of a sparrowhawk
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V. Swanson diary and last will
Manuscripts
Diary and last will of V. Swanson covering the period from October 4, 1917 to April 20, 1918. Entries describe game killed, weather, declining health, the making of clothes and usefuls, and mishaps on the river. Swanson was suffering from illness, snow blindness, exposure and starvation and ended the diary with a short, signed last will. His body was found by the undersigned Fred Eastrow and his partner Harry Trefzger on August 18, 1918.
mssHM 14183
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Sara J. Ballard diary
Manuscripts
The diary begins with Ballard's trip from Maine to California in September 1892. Along the way she stops in Chicago to see the World's Columbian Exposition and while in California she visits Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, San Diego and Palm Springs. In her entries, she gives details regarding the sights she sees, such as her visits to several of the Spanish missions, and the people she meets. She seems to have left to go back home in May 1893. The diary picks back up in 1894 when Ballard is back in San Francisco, and in the last entry dated August 26, 1895, she is still in northern California.
mssHM 64275
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Mary J. Colson diary of a whaling voyage in South American waters
Manuscripts
Diary of Mary J. Colson, a ship captain's wife, chronicling a whaling voyage in the South Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of Argentina and Uruguay from October 1877 to December 1880. Colson provides details on the weather, food, and other ships encountered, noting numerous social visits with other ship captains and sometimes their wives. She describes frequent whaling activities, noting whales sighted, chased, and killed, and the boiling of whales aboard ship with the amount of oil extracted often mentioned. Colson's entry of January 13, 1878, details the killing of a right whale that happened near the ship. She refers to several accidents, mishaps, and deaths during the voyage, and to an outbreak of scurvy. There are a few trips onshore--to Port Stanley, Falkland Islands and to Montevideo, Uruguay--but none are described in detail. Also mentioned are reports and letters from home received from other ships, and notable events such as birthdays and holidays. The journal ends on December 18, 1880. At the end of the volume is a two-page account of whales killed and amounts of oil extracted, dating from December 9, 1877 to January 26, 1881, a note about a steamship dated April 18, 1881, and notes and calculations. The journal is written in pencil and is in a bound volume with numerous blank pages; the back inside cover has four small ink prints depicting sperm whales. Also present are two cabinet card portraits: one presumably of Mary J. Colson dated October 1, 1879 and one presumably of Herbert D. and Mary J. Colson, undated. Both photographs were taken at Chute & Brooks studio, Montevideo, Uruguay. In addition, there is a souvenir album of illustrated scenes of Montevideo titled "Album de Montevideo publicado por la Libreria Alemana Buenos Aires" (9 x 13 cm) with captions in English, Spanish, French, and German. An annotated transcript of the diary is available (mssHM 26611 (FAC)), which was created by Joan Druett, author of Petticoat Whalers: Whaling Wives at Sea, 1820-1920 (2001), in 1991.
mssHM 26611
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Edward Meyer Kern diary
Manuscripts
Diary of the first part of Frémont's fourth expedition from October 8 through November 11, 1848.
mssHM 4154
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Frederick Moulton Shaw diary
Manuscripts
Diary kept by Frederick Moulton Shaw from approximately 1886-1891 while he was living in Laurel Canyon. His entries include notes on weather conditions, water supply, felling wood, bee keeping, quotes from various books, religious musings, a story about killing rattlesnakes that was later published in the Times, and a few sketches and maps. While these entries are pedestrian, Shaw's eccentricities frequently emerge. A recurring theme is his disputes with his neighbors, specifically a man named E.C. Watson, whom Shaw accuses of trying to a hire a man to have him killed, of shooting at Shaw several times, stealing his horses, trying to sell his bees, accosting him in the street, prowling around his house at night, and "threatening death and destruction...[Watson] Swears he will kill six or seven persons yet before he is done." Shaw also writes of run-ins with his other neighbor E.W. Doss, who "sympathize[ed] with me in my affliction of the head but could not stand any of my 'jaw.'" Another entry includes a drawing of a skull and crossbones and the note that he would place the image on his card until "they quit calling me Doctor...I do not object to being called physician but a doctor is another thing!! The paid Thugs of Society!!!" In the same entry Shaw also says that "I have been the means of saving many thousands of lives by my treatment." Also includes four photographs (1914) and a postcard of land in Laurel Canyon.
mssHM 75011
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Richard H. Kern diary
Manuscripts
Richard H. Kern's diary of his trip with Frémont's fourth expedition from October 20, 1848 through February 16, 1849.
mssHM 4273