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Frederick Moulton Shaw diary

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Description
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.
Type
Manuscripts(Opens in new tab)
Call number
mssHM 75011
Creator
Shaw, Frederick Moulton (1827-1914)(Opens in new tab)
Provenance
Gift of Arlene M. Anderson, July 28, 1967.
Find out more
View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab)

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