Manuscripts Record
Metadata
Catalog Number |
108.001 |
Title |
Harlow, Mahlon H., 1811-1896 |
Date |
1851-1854 |
Scope & Content |
HARLOW, MAHLON H. 1811-1896 INVENTORY AND DESCRIPTION (Entered in Library of Congress National Union Catalog of Manuscripts - NUCMC - as OCLC 785896748.) Diary, 1851-1854. Mahlon Hall Harlow and family left Missouri for California in the spring of 1850. When they reached the western part of the Oregon Trail in the early fall, they were advised that grass was low on the Trail and it would be best for them to go to the Salt Lake City area to spend the winter. In the spring of 1851, they decided to head for Oregon instead of continuing to California. Harlow paid a squatter a five dollar gold piece and old pistol for 320 acres north of Eugene City. The diary contains a day-to-day account of happenings, mainly weather and work. "Saturday Dec 25 [1852] Snowed a little last night in the night. this morning T[emperature] 21. Snowed considerable the fore part of the day from 11 to 1/2 after 2. Thaw a little after noon. Verry cold a little after dark, cloudy & a little foggy. T. 21, looks very much like pouring down snowing. If this weather holds much longer a vast quantity of cattle must surely die." "Jany 4th [1854] has been light clouds & pleasant for 4 days. had 2 or 3 light showers only - old woman had a fine daughter today at 10 o clock." Harlow briefly recounts the trip from Salt Lake to Portland in 1851, including trouble with the Mormons at Salt Lake City. "The emigrants who held this meeting were glad to get away from Utah Teritory without further proceedings and without helping anyway, only privately, and we left the settlement S. of the mormons the 20 of February and moved out 20 to 25 miles and camped out in the worst of the winter, the mormans having threateded us or many of us that we should never get out of the valley" |