Location of original diary is unknown.
James H. Morley was born in Westfield, Massachusetts on May 5, 1824. He attended Massachusetts Normal School and was a student of engineering with Adna Anderson, a Chief Engineer with the Northern Pacific Railway. Morley's first work in engineering was on the Connecticul River Railroad. He then worked with the Engineer Corps of the New York and Erie Railroad, the Pacific Railroad, and the Iron Mountain Railroad. He married Virginia F. Woodruff in 1855.
In 1862 Morley left St. Louis, Missouri, and traveled up the Missouri River on the steamer Spread Eagle. He arrived in Fort Benton, Montana, on June 20, 1862, to join the Montana gold rush. Morley, with a group of men, mined for gold mostly in western Montana south of present day Missoula, ranging almost as far south as Yellowstone. He arrived back in St. Louis on August 4, 1865.
In 1865 Morley returned to work for the Iron Mountain Railroad, first as Chief Engineer and then as Superintendent, completing extensive lines of that railroad before leaving in 1883.
Morley died in 1889.
James H. Morley's daily dairy accounts from 1862-1865 begin with his trip to Montana from St. Louis, Missouri, onboard a steamer up the Missouri River. It continues with his group's two week journey from Fort Benton to their camp and mining site on Gold Creek, between what is now Drummond and Deer Lodge, Montana, with supply loaded wagons. From that point his diary entries describe the day's shaft or sluice mining efforts, reports from group members who had traveled to other possible mining sites, and descriptions of his own travels around Hellgate Canyon and into Rock Creek, then on to Beaverhead, Flint Creek, Wisdom River, the Big Hole prairie, and back up to Deer Lodge Creek. By January 1863 Morley and his team had ranged as far east in Montana as the Gallatin and Three Forks areas. Also in January Morley noted the results of a trial of Plummer, probably the infamous Harry Plummer, one year before that man was hung by vigilantes without a trial. Morley briefly describes his own contact with justice as a juror in a trial of accused murderer Bill Mitchell.
Over the next two years Morley sometimes described the daily drudgery of mining work but also mining claim disputes, planning and charting a plat map for Centreville, wildlife and geological features, scouting for and staking new claims, difficulties of sending and receiving mail, and the mining towns of Bannack and Virginia City, Montana. His daily entries end with his return to St. Louis in August, 1865.
The diary typescript pages are organized chronologically
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James Henry Morley Diary, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, The University of Montana-Missoula.
Custodial history is unknown.
This typescript was probably donated to a museum at the University of Montana, possibly arround 1950.
The Library of Congress and Yale University Sterling Memorial Library also hold copies of the typescript. A microformed copy of the diary and a bound transcript are held by the Montana Historical Society.
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