[Diary of a Logging and Pile Driving Business on the Stillaguamish River at the End of the 19th Century]

[Stanwood, Wa.], 1896. Very good.. Small, wallet-style commercial diary, with [370]pp. of entries and notes. Contemporary dyed calf, gilt lettered; wallet flap folded over from right edge. Light wear to covers, heavier along flap spine. Light tanning and minor dust soiling internally. Accomplished in a slightly crude, but quite legible script. A manuscript pocket diary for 1896 kept by an unnamed man who ran a small logging and pile driving operation along the Stillaguamish River, in and around the town of Stanwood on the coast of Snohomish County, Washington, approximately fifty miles north of Seattle. Although the diarist does not identify himself, the preponderance of locations where he worked and stayed throughout the year are meticulously tracked, and several of the named individuals with whom interacts socially and professionally correspond to historical records for the region and period.

Entries in the present account are typically brief, extending to four or five sentences at most, but also are extremely consistent, with every day of the year documented. They detail the course of his business activities -- prices charged, wages paid, names and locations of customers, and type of work completed -- as well as his personal life such as travels and social events on occasion. The writer logged wood from the forests around the Stillaguamish, transported them via the river to his work sites, and drove piles with a crew of two or three laborers, usually for waterfront docks and loading platforms. Altogether, an interesting and steady account of a small business operating in northwestern Washington at the end of the 19th century.