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.
