Treasure from the Archive
During this eerie season of covid-19, social distancing and stay-at-home orders, ordinary activities are certainly disrupted and spring travel plans evaporate. However, I’m one of those fortunate enough to find a work project to do from home, and to embark on a travel journey I never imagined. From the recesses of the Archives at the History Center, I was entrusted with four small pocket diaries, written in 1870, to begin the work of transcription from home. These are the diaries of Edward and Frances Dana who are taking a Wedding Trip – around the world - over a century ago.
Edward, sixth son of Charles and Mary Swan Dana (Woodstock merchant and builder of the Woodstock History Center’s Dana House), was born in 1820 and spent his life working in the hardware trade in Boston. On June 1, 1870, he married Frances Swan, daughter of Rev. Robert Southgate, at Woodstock. They were to go on to have three children, but first, they planned a one-year adventure to see the world.
A century and a half later, all we need to do is make a few clicks online, and travel plans to some of the most remote parts of the globe fall into place. In 1870, there were no tour groups or cruise lines to make the voyage a piece of cake. For Edward and Frances, the commitment to travel around the world was a difficult, dangerous, and above all courageous undertaking. It would be two years before Jules Verne would imagine such a fantastical trip. Even Thomas Cook wouldn’t begin publishing his famous world tours for another 2 years.
Imagine the travel landscape in June of 1870, when global travel was in its infancy. The ability to cross the continental United States by rail had only become possible one year earlier, when the trans-continental railroad was joined at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory on May 10, 1869. The Suez Canal had opened only seven months before, on November 17, 1869, allowing passage between Asia and Europe for the first time without having to go around Africa. Edward and Frances were indeed pioneers. Both travel and communication required determination and patience. Relying on a series of unconnected transport systems, all arrangements for their hotel stays or passage on freight steamers and mail ships had to be made through various regional agents, with dependence on local telegraph offices. Besides this inconvenience, water wasn’t available in disposable plastic bottles at every rest stop. One guidebook at the time suggests they might have had to hire a coolie to carry water skins for them as they made their way across parts of India.
As I work at transcribing the handwritten accounts of this momentous journey, I am allowed to see the world unfold through their eyes. So far, I’ve followed them across the American continent by train to San Francisco, across the Pacific Ocean to Japan, and on to China and India. They’ve now been traveling for 6 months, seeing magnificent sights, enduring rugged, sometimes torturous terrain, and describing marvels of history and architecture. They have ventured by train, carriage, wagon, buggy, horseback, steamship, rickshaw, ghary, (which is a two-horse cab), pony, riverboats and ferries, sedan-chair carried by coolies, as well as hiking for miles on foot.
Here is one brief snapshot describing the Wasatch Mountains from the train as they travel through the vast Utah Territory, having observed Native Americans and Chinamen doing laundry in the mountain stream:
“The Mountains rise to a height of 6, to 8,000 ft. above the valley. Upon their rugged slopes the Winter snows still lingered, and sent back the greeting of the morning sun.”
Although in 1870 Yosemite California was government land, the first road into the valley wasn’t completed until 1874, and it didn’t become a National Park until 1890. Early visitors had to endure many miles of travel over primitive trails. As they descend into Yosemite Valley on July 19, 1870, Edward describes:
“At 5 P.M. we struck Prospect Point, overlooking the Merced Canyon. Three thousand feet below us, in the evening shadows, the Merced dashed along, tumbling and rumbling, a belt of white, foaming water. Standing upon the precipice and looking down, almost strait, I started back with a feeling of awe…nor shall I ever forget the emotions aroused by the scene before me. Down, down, down we went, almost perpendicularly – the hind feet of our horses on a level with their heads, into the valley. At last in Yo-Semite. Before & above us stood the Vestibule & El Capitan 3,200 ft high – solid walls of granite. Night was upon us & still six miles further to go.”
This was their experience upon departing Hong Kong, bound for Calcutta:
“At 5 P.M. we began to steam out of the harbor – soon after which, orders came to close ports – We soon felt the roll of the steamer – and found ourselves upon a rougher sea than we had experienced – This continued – and to increase also… the sea began to break over the ship, sweeping into the cabin through the open sky light, and down the passage way. I looked out and saw all the servants busy dipping and sopping up the water – The sea continued to pour over us, for nearly 12 hours.”
One of the fun things about this project for me is when the ‘light-bulb’ comes on, and I’m able to make serendipitous connections. In these moments, the virtual voyage becomes an unexpected reality. For one example, in a section of the pocket diary that contains notes and memoranda, I came across a list of names and businesses that were jotted down perhaps as potential contacts or places to visit. As I set to work deciphering these names, there was among the list a “D. Robertson, Alexandria”. This, I discovered through google, happened to be a bookseller in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1870. Digging further, I found that among the list of books he offered for sale was one guide by Sir John Gardner Wilkinson, a pioneer British Egyptologist of the 19th century. I was able to find this text online, thanks to books.google.com, and as I read, I realized I was reading familiar passages! Edward Dana had copied these identical passages from Wilkinson’s book into his diary, making notes about what he and Frances were heading off to see. No longer was Dana’s list of names just words on a page to transcribe, but now I can imagine Mr. & Mrs. Dana, in anticipation of their trip to the Egyptian antiquities of Cairo and Thebes, seeking out this bookseller upon arrival in Alexandria. I can imagine them seeking excursion tips from Mr. D. Robertson and carefully browsing the shelves, finally selecting this guidebook, and spending the evening at their hotel reading and taking notes!
Another instance where these little books come alive is Edward’s entry on July 12, arriving at San Francisco:
“Standing in the cabin of the boat that takes 5 miles to San Francisco, musing upon what we had seen, and thinking of how I should manage to get to the Grand Hotel – I was touched - and turning around, grasped the hand of one of my oldest friends – H. B. Williams – It was a relief – In a moment I felt at home.”
In addition, Frances’ brief entry includes this bit of information a few weeks later, on August 1, as they leave San Francisco and embark for Japan:
“Leave in Great Republic for Yokohama”.
With just a tiny bit of sleuthing, I learned that H. B. Williams is Henry Williams, first son of Norman Williams of Woodstock, who moved to San Francisco in the 1850s, and in 1870 is head of his own Pacific Coast shipping business. By 1876 he will also be an agent of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which commands the Steamship Great Republic, with service from San Francisco to Yokohama, on which Edward & Frances will sail. It seems that when you’re traveling around the world on the cusp of global connectedness, it is a good thing to have connections!
In this time of social-distancing and isolation, knowing that we’re all sharing a crisis that our grand-children will read about in their history books, this connection to our own Woodstock history becomes precious. While I’m looking forward to our stay-at-home season ending, and our summer season’s museum opening at the Woodstock History Center, for now I’ll enjoy this virtual around-the-world voyage that took place over one hundred and fifty years ago by folks from our own neighborhood. And as long as our work-from-home orders are in place, I’m sure I can find more treasures in the Archives to be brought to light.
In the early 1900s, there was a “Woodstock Suffrage Study Club.” The group met at people’s homes, including those of Mrs. F.S. Mackenzie, Mrs. Richard Billings, and Miss Luna B. Converse. It is interesting to note that Mrs. F.S. Mackenzie and Mrs. Richard Billings, on their invitations to suffrage study club meetings, still followed the social convention of referring to themselves using their husbands’ names.