JJM's 1907 Yellowstone diary: four pages of the original pencil manuscript

# James J. Murphy's 1907 Yellowstone diary: four pages of the original manuscript Read from four scans that Dan Murphy made of the original pocket diary on 4 March 2018 (Epson Perfection V550, 100 dpi; emailed to the family that evening). The diary is written in pencil in a small ruled notebook; later notes by the family are in ink. The scans are low resolution, so `[?]` marks an uncertain word. Square brackets are this transcription's descriptions. Line breaks follow the notebook's lines. Read on 28 September 2026 by Claude (Opus) from images upscaled and rotated for reading. The full diary text, as typed by Imelda Bryant and printed by Dan Murphy in 1994, is in `1907-07-25_sagebrushers-diary_jjm-yellowstone-trip`. The original shows how much the 1994 text was edited (see the end of this file). --- scan 1: front cover --- [Front cover of a small pocket notebook, dark green, corners worn. Stamped at the centre: a circular seal lettered "CROWN MEMORANDUM" beneath a crown, with a fleur-de-lis in the middle.] --- scan 2: inside front cover and first page --- [The notebook lies open. The inside front cover, upside down in the scan, carries a note in ink by Agnes (Kelly) Murphy. An ink blot covers the start of the fourth line.] Dad's first trip to Yellowstone Park: James J. Murphy – the year before we were married. – [ink blot] you could really make a good story of this, if you wanted to. – I always meant to go over this with a pen. [The first page, in pencil, written along the length of the page. The top edge of the scan shows part of a line of writing from the facing page, cut off.] July 25 – 1907 Yellowstone National Park Trip. Party composed[?]. Jim Murphy Maud Sheehan. Tish Maloney. Grace Dawson. Kate Cosgrove. ) Nell Cosgrove. ) Geo. Archibald. May Konen. Wm. Thoroway. Mrs Wm. " " Owen Brinton. Ann Laughrin. Cook & Husband Mrs. & Mr. Charles Emerson. Chaperons. [A bracket joins the two Cosgroves. "Chaperons." is written in ink in a different hand, beside the Emersons.] --- scan 3: last page of the diary and inside back cover --- [Left: the last written page, in pencil.] Through at about 4.30 I then went home and changed went to the barber shop – had a hair cut a shave and a shampoo – went bac[k][?] had supper and called at My Hons house the first time in 30 days. Gee how glad I was to be back again and have her near me. [Below, in ink, in Agnes Murphy's hand:] "It's great reading especially when I remember I was 'His Hon'! Mother. [Right: the inside back cover. Pencil figures ("190", "2280", "1140" and others), a pencil sketch of a shaded oval, and a slip of paper pasted on, written in ink and signed "H" (Agnes Murphy Ward-Llewellyn, JJM's eldest daughter, writing to her sister Imelda Bryant):] Please save this for John because I have enclosed your letter to me when you didn't know if you were coming here in Terry's copy. I hope you agree John should have it with my love too. "H" --- scan 4: a two-page spread from the entry of 9 August 1907 --- [Left page. At the top, in ink, a later addition: "Our monogram / J.J.M. – A.R.K." beside a monogram drawn in a circle. Below, the pencil text:] on our way back up the trail we had to rest about a dozen different times on account of the girls on one platform I carved our monogram reaching the Top we came to Shaw's camp where he told us Miss Reid was with his party last week he entertained us royally We then went a little farther where we had lunch after which we rested about 1/2 hour while we were resting little birds came right up to us so that if we wanted to we could stretch out [Right page. An ink mark at the top, perhaps a page number.] our hands & touch them. They eating our crumbs and pieces of meat we finally reached Artists Point which gave us the best view of the Cayon we had yet struck spending about an hour here looking around admiring the beau- tiful scenery We started back, Meeting a Wyle[?] coach with a lot of dudes in it we gave them our yell and we shocked some of the poor things when[?] every coach would come along we would all get in line and get the lock step and whistle the tune we [A small word is written above "when" in the line "when every coach would".] --- how the 1994 booklet differs on these pages --- - **Party list.** The original heading is "Party composed." The booklet prints "Party pairs:". The original has no note after "Tish Maloney."; the booklet's "{Jim's best friend}" is Dan Murphy's 1994 note. "Mrs. & Mr. Charles Emerson" under "Cook & Husband" confirms that Mrs. Emerson was the cook. The ink "Chaperons." is not in the booklet. - **Agnes Murphy's notes.** The booklet joins her inside-cover note ("... the year before we were married ... you could really make a good story of this, if you wanted to") and her note under the last page ("It's great reading especially when I remember I was 'His Hon'! Mother.") into one note. It leaves out "I always meant to go over this with a pen." - **Last page.** Close to the booklet's wording. The booklet adds "P.M.", "the barber-shop" and punctuation. - **9 August.** The booklet corrects the spelling ("Cayon" → "Canyon"), adds punctuation, and changes some wording ("where he told us" → "when he told us", "an hour here" → "an hour there", "about 1/2 hour" → "about a half hour"). It moves the birds' eating into the earlier sentence ("came right up to us to eat our crumbs and pieces of meat so that ..."). It prints "Wyle coach" as the original appears to read.