Sanford Daniel Reed was an early Kansas pioneer who traveled from Peoria, Illinois in 1864 by wagon with his wife Vesta and daughter, Josie. He settled somewhere in Kansas where he and his wife had a son, Franklin, in 1868. Following Sanford's death and Josie's marriage to Stephen Howes of Gallatin County, Montana Territory, Vesta and Franklin moved to live with Howes. They appear in the 1880 census record. Franklin eventually married and had at least one daughter, Helen, who married Joseph L. Moore. Helen Reed Moore gave her grandfather's diary to Merrill G. Burlingame sometime in the 1960s.
The Reed diary consists of brief daily notations of the wagon journey from Peoria, Illinois on April 14, 1864 and stops at Lawrence, Kansas on April 29, 1864. Reed does not mention any fellow travelers in the entries, describing rather the weather, road and camping conditions as he journeyed across southern Iowa and northwest Missouri. The route passed: Peoria and Galesburg, Illinois; Keosauqua, Bloomfield, and Centerville, Iowa; Eaglesville, Albany, St. Joseph, Missouri; Lawrence, Kansas. A handwritten transcription of the entries prepared by Burlingame accompanies the diary.
This collection is open for research.
Diary created by Sanford Daniel Reed was originally donated with Collection 2245, the Merrill G. Burlingame Papers, in 1994 and was accessioned as a separate collection in 1999 due to a processing oversight.
This collection was processed 2009 April 21