Very little information is readily available about R. McConnell. According to the original catalog information for this item, he settled in Moscow, Idaho Territory in 1881, where he established a store. Prior to that he had been a traveling salesman in the southern United States. The 1869 diary tells of his travels from Cincinnati to New Orleans and on to Florida. In the 1881 portion of the diary, McConnell records his experiences looking for a location in the west for his family to relocate. McConnell traveled by railroad and water from Xenia, Illinois to various cities and towns in California, Oregon, and Washington Territory; the last entry is July 2, 1881.
This collection consists of two copies of a typed transcription of the diary of R. McConnell, with entries for the years 1869 and 1881. The transcriber is not identified, and there is no information about the location of the original diary.
This collection is open and available for research use.
R. McConnell diary transcript
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
These items were donated to the Washington State University Libraries by John Brown at an unknown date. They were originally cataloged as a vertical file (VF 945), and were converted to a manuscript collection in 2012.
This collection was processed by Cheryl Gunselman.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.