Samuel Locke diary

1850-1851

Samuel Locke, a "forty-niner" (early settler in the California gold rush), kept this diary and memorandum book in 1850. The volume contains a "sick list" for June 27-July 2, 1850; accounts against persons for medicine and attendance; personal addresses; accounts of provisions purchased from July 2-15, 1850; a diary kept onboard the "California Packet" from San Francisco en route home via Panama from November 9-December 1, 1850, in which Locke mentions the loss of his possessions by fire before he sailed, his illness, and that of many passengers (some of whom had been ill for six and nine months), grumbling about food, drunken officers of the ship, and other matters. The volume was endorsed by J. L. Locke in Belfast on May 10, 1860: "Memorandum kept by Sam'l Locke on his passage home from California. Nov. 1850 - to 1851."