A. T. Smith Diary transcript 1840

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A transcription of a 1840 diary in which Alvin Thompson Smith writes about topics such as pondering crossing the Rocky Mountains; living in Quincy, Illinois; the tasks and chores of daily life; his marriage to Abigail Raymond; traveling to Independence, Missouri; repairing his wagon and purchasing mules; interacting with "Indians;" his troubles traveling on the Great Plains with a company that included Congregational Minister Harvey L. Clark (or Clarke); his interactions with buffalo hunters; his passing through of the Black Hills region, Independence Rock, the Columbia River region, and Snake River; prayer and his religious life, and staying at Henry Spalding's Presbyterian mission in modern-day Washington for the winter of 1840-1841.

Born in Connecticut in 1802, Alvin Thompson Smith, along with his wife Abigail Raymond, was amongst the first Euro-Americans to settle in the area on the Tualatin Plains that became Forest Grove, Oregon in the early 1840s. In his life, Smith was a missionary, a postmaster, a notable participant in the Champoeg Meetings, the builder of a 1856 house in Forest Grove that is today recognized by the National Register of Historic Places as the Alvin T. Smith House, and a contributor to an orphanage that became Tualatin Academy and later developed into Pacific University. Smith died in 1888 at the age of 85. This is one part of a collection of transcriptions of Alvin T. Smith's diaries from the years 1840-1853. The transcriptions, which are likely not identical to the diaries themselves and perhaps summarize some entries, were likely typewritten in the 1970s. The diaries are notable for their near daily entries. The original diaries are held by the Oregon Historical Society (Mss 8).