Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1816 (Creation)
Level of description
File
Extent and medium
i, 45 ff. ; 190 x 115 mm.
Maroon paper covers.
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers; London; Purchase (with NLW ex 3100); April 2022; 993430610202419.
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Manuscript journal of a tour of New York State and the Niagara Peninsula, Upper Canada (now Ontario), 15 August-1 September 1816, written by a Welsh Old Etonian, possibly Pierce Wynne Yorke.
The writer and his companion (identified only as Richard, see ff. 18 and 45) leave New York City on 15 August 1816 (f. 1) and travel by steamer and wagon up the Hudson River valley (ff. 1-10 verso) to Albany, staying there 17-20 August (ff. 10 verso-16); they then continue overland, visiting Utica, 21-[23] August (ff. 21-24 verso), the Finger Lakes (ff. 28 verso-33 verso), and Buffalo, 28-29 August (ff. 35 verso, 38 verso). After crossing the Niagara River into Upper Canada they visit Niagara Falls, 29 August-1 September (ff. 40 verso-45), and continue to Newark [Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario] on 1 September (f. 45 verso). The volume contains frequent references to their accommodation, travel arrangements and the often unseasonable weather (1816 being the so called 'Year without a Summer'), as well as descriptions of the scenery and flora, agricultural practices, Indigenous Americans, American manners and politics and the effects of the War of 1812. Also included, in pencil, are a verse on Col. Cecil Bisshopp (inside front cover), brief accounts of bills paid (f. i) and mostly illegible notes apparently relating to the contents of the journal (inside back cover). The author is not named but evidently has close connections with North Wales (see ff. 4 recto-verso, 5 verso, 27 verso, 28 verso-29 verso, 45), is an Old Etonian and a schoolfriend of Bisshopp, whose grave he visits at Lundy's Lane, Niagara (see f. 44); Pierce (or Peirce) Wynne Yorke of Dyffryn Aled appears to be the most plausible candidate.
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Conditions governing reproduction
Usual copyright laws apply.
Language of material
- English
Script of material
Language and script notes
English.
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Note
Title based on contents.
Note
'97005' in pencil on f. i.
Alternative identifier(s)
Alma system control number
Access points
Place access points
Name access points
Genre access points
Description control area
Description identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
Description follows NLW guidelines based on ISAD(G) 2nd ed.; AACR2; and LCSH
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation revision deletion
October 2023.
Language(s)
Script(s)
Sources
Archivist's note
Description compiled by Rhys Jones.