Diary Kept by Engineer William E. Babbitt, Including His Time Working on Railroads in Indiana and the American South
Various Places, Including Massachusetts, Vermont, Indiana, Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia: 1854 to 1857. Journal binding of brown marbled boards with leather spine measuring 9.75 x 8”, containing 184 pages of manuscript, almost all in ink, with a few pages in pencil. A three page handwritten index of the diary is present at the end. Covers worn and detached, a few pages faded. A large and detailed diary kept by engineer William E. Babbitt (1825-1898) while working on railroads in Indiana, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama, and while running his own firm and working at the Charlestown Navy Yard in his home state of Massachusetts. The diary documents the life of an engineer during the early days of railroad construction in the United States, and also contains several interesting descriptions of African Americans in the South, including a nine page account of a tour of Mammoth Caves led by enslaved guides.
Born in Charlestown, Babbitt was a student of prominent American educator Cornelius Felton. The diary records Babbitt time as a young railroad engineer with the Evansville and Crawfordsville Railroad in Crawfordsville, Indiana (pp. 1-15), the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in Munfordville, Kentucky (pp. 16-48), and railroads near Greenville, Alabama and Columbus, Georgia (pp. 64-83). The rest of the diary (pp. 49-63 and 84-187) takes place in New England, primarily the Boston area.
The journal commences in 1854, with William living and working in and around Crawfordsville, In, together with his wife Lucia. The diary provides a day to day account of Babbitt’s time as a railroad engineer—working on the line, straightening track, hunting, socializing, riding with his wife, sending letters, and playing endless games of euchre with friends and colleagues. He works on a plan for a drawbridge, visits Indianapolis, debates religion with a Presbyterian (he himself was a Universalist), and attends the dedication of a monument to the Battle of Tippecanoe (“candy & beer were sold on the ground and a huge grizzly bear was exhibited”—May 11, 1853).
In May, 1853, Babbitt begins working for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, designing a crossing of the Green River at Munfordville. He describes the rail journey south in typical engineer fashion—“the road for most of the way is smooth and in fine running order they drop down into Madison on an inclined plane of 319 feet per mile down which we were set by the brakes…” (May 21-24). He describes a few of the places he visits, including Louisville, and the sleepy village of Munfordville:
“Munfordville is a small quiet dreamy place of about 300 inhabitants situated on a hill side sloping down to Green River there is a nice courthouse here and a brick church & some four or five stores, there is not a well in the place and all the water is drawn from a spring about 1/4 mile from town which they say is unfathomable it is so deep.” (June 20, 1853)
Babbitt seems to have been interested in the local African American population, and pens several descriptions of enslaved persons he encounters:
“Today was election day a great time among the Negroes—the town was full of people in one old house a man was fiddling and two men at a time would dance jigs regular double shuffle breakdowns, in another place on the green were negroes playing marbles—men and boys—then in another place some negro women were selling cakes candy & cider and in still another the jugs of whiskey flew round the crowd while the negro men & women were dressed out in their best—take it all together it was a regular old fashion election.” (August 1, 1853)
“at night went in to hear a black preacher who made a good discourse from Acts 3d 19th repentance & conversion were the two heads of the discourse…” (August 20, 1853)
“Rode with Lucia about ten miles to a camp meeting found about 600 people…there was a cart out a few rods from the ground where the niggers were selling gingerbread and watermelons—there were lots of nigger men & women on the ground…some listening to the sermon—some eating melon & some chatting about the weather crops & c…” (Sept 4, 1853)
“Saw two slaves sold on the courthouse steps one a young fellow of 25 years old sold for $1250 and one aged 46 years sold for $650. I was pleased to learn the young fellow was sold into the neighborhood of his wife & child, the other man was bought by the same man but he had no family.” (Jan 9, 1854)
A particularly interesting nine page section provides a detailed account of a trip Babbitt took of Mammoth Caves, guided by famous enslaved cave guides Stephen Bishop, Mat Bransford, and Nick Bransford:
“We each took up our line of march down the rough slope into the darkness below—each provided with a lantern—and Messrs. Wilson & Thompson having each a suspicious looking bottle neck protruding from their coat pockets…the guide burns some paper and lights up the immense dome from floor to ceiling the whole top looking white and smooth as plaster…we build a fine monument in honor of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad…then we cross the styx in a flatboat here the party sung ‘goodbye’, ‘swanee river’…we enter a long and fine avenue called ‘Silliman’s Avenue’…then we stop and take dinner which the guide brought in a basket…chickens and ham and pie and bread and wine…Stephen, Matt, Alfred & Nicholas are the guides and are a fine specimen of Negroes. Stephen has been a guide thirteen years and in two years will be a free man by the Doctor’s Will, then he must go to Liberia, Nicholas our guide belongs to a man in Glasgow and is trying to buy his freedom.” (October 4-5, 1853)
In February, 1854, Babbitt loses his job, and returns home to Cambridge. He visits with family in Vermont, where he also “went to a medium meeting where a woman went into a trance and preached from Franklin, Webster Ballou &c” (April 23, 1854). In July, 1854, Babbitt travels South to work on railroads near Greenville, Alabama (possibly the Alabama and Florida Railroad), and Columbus, Georgia. He takes a steamer to Savannah, and then travels to Fort Dale, Alabama by rail, stage, and corduroy road. While working on the railroad, Babbitt lives in a camp alongside Black workers:
“Camp life is a fine healthy way of living we were all well and had great appetites…our blacks had the most enjoyment though they were continually singing and at night one would play on a tune pan with various scraps of song thrown in…one sang a song which went ‘Oh, Oh, Oh, Aunt Harriet Beecher Stowe how could you leave your country & save poor nigger so…” (July 24, 1854)
He becomes friends with several locals, and pens a couple of descriptions of plantation life, as well as an anecdote about a murder:
“Judge Iverson’s son had lately bought a pair of Negro dogs for $100 they work men & women on the line and the men generally go bare headed and bare legged with only a short shirt on and the women go nearly as bad…I heard that Williams who was engaged in the street fight in Greenville in which a man was killed and he was badly wounded…a man stepped up with a gun and deliberately shot him in broad daylight killing him immediately that is the way they do things here.” (August 31, 1854)
While in Georgia, he records a conversation he had with an elderly Black man, as well as an anecdote of a stabbing by an enslaved person:
“I am 77 years old I have had a heap of masters in my time some are dead some are in the state in poverty having failed and had to sell out and some are in other states I have sold for a thousand dollars in my time a thousand dollars.” (October 22, 1854)
“A Negro in Pitts & Hatcher’s stable stabbed another with a knife killing him instantly the dead man had as calm and quiet an expression as it asleep his shirt was rolled up to show the wound…Went up to courthouse and heard sentence of death passed upon Wright and Pitts & Hatcher’s Negro boy bill. They are to be hung…” (Jan 7-17, 1855)
In March, 1855, Babbitt returns home to East Cambridge, where he opens his own engineering firm:
“Came down to East Cambridge towards the last of the month and got ready to start an office over Uncle P’s store on the 28th went over to the port and got an advertisement inserted in the chronicle…also went to Boston and got some cards printed.” (April 9-30, 1854)
The rest of the diary, through the year 1857, takes place in the Cambridge and Boston area. He takes a job as Assistant Engineer at the Charlestown Navy Yard in May, 1857, a position he held for 15 years. The diary provides details about his daily engineering work:
“In the afternoon went with the Mayor Sargent & Eagan to look at the grading of Elery St then went with Phillips & measured plastering in Malledge’s house…got Frank Holmes to help me take levels over Ellery st…went to Boston to meet Christopher Caldwell who got paid for his grading Tufts Streets…went to the port—finished a plan of Watriss land and handed it in also left for Dodge a plan of Ellery St.” (Nov 3-10, 1856)
He attends the Lyceum, where he goes to lectures by notables including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Henry Dana, and Henry Ward Beecher. An avid reader, he records the titles he is reading and buying (“got a copy of Called’s Logarithmic Tables. Price $4.00 unbound.”—June 6, 1857), and joins the mercantile Library. The diary contains a plethora of details of Babbitt’s daily life in Boston—keeping guinea pigs and hens, growing grapes, family news, shopping (buying halibut, repairing a flute, etc), events such as fires and the launching of the Merrimack, attending the Universalist church, renovating his house, and much more.
Overall a detailed account of the daily life of an engineer during early days of American railroad construction, with interesting descriptions of African Americans in the South. Item #12777
Price: $4,500.00