1874 Journal Covering a Trip from Massachusetts to the Dakota Territory, with Stops at Odd Fellows Lodges

United States, 1874. Daily journal measuring 3 x 6 ¾ inches. Seventy-four pages (double-sided) filled out with some memoranda pages at the end blank. Several pages faded, else legible; spine broken with wear to cover but contents excellent. Overall very good plus.. A daily journal from 1874 belonging to Ralph C. Hill (1824–1915) of Milford, Massachusetts. Hill mostly remarks on the weather and on his business transactions, but from June to August of 1874 he took a long journey through Iowa and what was then Dakota Territory; then through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ontario, and Quebec; and home to Massachusetts through Vermont. While on his trip, he notes down having visited several “lodges”, specifically in “Lamarrs” (Le Mars, Iowa), Cherokee, Iowa, and Oakfield, Wisconsin. Hill’s obituary mentions that he was an Odd Fellow[1]: a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternity formed in 1918 out of England’s Order of Odd Fellows.

In the Dakotas, Hill visits Flandreau (“Flandro”), Dell Rapids, Sioux Falls (“Sew falls”), and Luverne (“Laverne”). He writes that “the Sew [sic] valley [is] the finest country I ever saw” (July 9). Hill’s travels coincided with Custer’s expedition, which would lead to a gold rush and population boom in the territory; at the time, much of the territory was unexplored by Euro-Americans.

Hill did not seem to have transacted much of any business out west, presumably traveling for pleasure, though his diary is terse. Of interest as a document of tourism in the American west.

[1] Transcript-Telegram, January 26, 1915, 4.