Title: William C. Cogswell Diaries
Inclusive Dates: 1884-1898

Creator:

• Cogswell, William C.

Call Number: Milwaukee Mss AF

Quantity: 1.4 c.f. (1 archives box and 1 record center carton)

Repository:

Housed at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries’ Archives Department / Milwaukee Area Research Center; owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

UW-Milwaukee Libraries, Archives / Milwaukee Area Research Ctr. (Map)

Abstract:

Diaries of Cogswell, a professional copyist in Milwaukee, dealing with his work in copying deeds and abstracts, and recounting daily activities in which many Milwaukee residents are named.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mil000af

 ↑ Bookmark this ↑

 ↑ Bookmark this ↑

The writer's name is not given anywhere in the diaries. Among the material that came with the diaries was a New Brunswick Almanac for 1845 with the name W. C. Cogswell on the flyleaf. This is the name given in the letter from the donor, the Green Lake County Clerk, describing the collection. The writer reveals in his diaries that he is a Canadian. He speaks frequently of places in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, also of Winnipeg and Chicago. He seems to have made his home in all of these places. He also speaks frequently of his work, which is the drawing up of abstracts, or possibly only the copying of abstracts. According to the letter from the Green Lake County Clerk these manuscripts were left at the County Court House about 1918 by a man named William G. or William E. Cogswell.

From his diaries additional information on the man may be gathered. He made his first visit to Milwaukee in February, 1882, and came there to make it more or less his permanent home in April, 1884. He worked at Pratt and Ogden's until May, 1885, and then became an independent worker, spending most of his time at abstracting in Milwaukee and along the lake shore as far as Manistique, Michigan. He lived at the Ricketson Hotel when in Milwaukee, was a faithful attendant at the Episcopal Church, and for recreation wrote in his diary, copied hymns into a book to be called "Hymns of the Century," or visited with acquaintances. Several times he made expeditions up along the shore of Lake Michigan, stopping to work at Oconto, Menominee, Marinette, Escanaba, and Manistique, and on one occasion visited Mackinac Island and the Sault. On these trips he also concentrated on minutiae rather than giving his impressions of the new surroundings.

The diaries are written in a beautiful hand, the writer evidently having rewritten them from memoranda. The contents, however, do not seem to warrant the effort. They are, in general, a detailed narrative of the life of a commonplace man who lived a very ordinary existence. He recorded minutely such details as his hour of rising, the weather, the work he was engaged in, and the gist of his conversations with friends. He made infrequent comments on American life. Occasionally he alluded to some early tragedy in his own life but carefully avoided any specific information.

Acquisition Information

Presented by the County Clerk of Green Lake County, Wisconsin, July 1933.

Box   2 Volume   1	1884-1889
Box   1 Volume   3	1887
Box   1 Volume   4	1888
Box   1 Volume   5	1889
Box   1 Volume   6	1890
Box   1 Volume   7	1891
Box   2 Volume   2	1895
Box   1 Volume   8	1898