Special Collections and University Archives is pleased to announce a new finding aid published for the Jasper Cranfill diaries, 1865-1866 (Ax 128). The finding aid is available on Archives West.

Jasper Cranfill was the son of Isom Cranfill and was born October 10, 1841 in Wilmington, Illinois. Jasper worked on his father’s farm in Linn County near Peoria, Oregon, went hunting, fishing, and helped his father with woodworking. He died May 5, 1867.

The Jasper Cranfill diaries are two slim, black, leather-bound volumes, dated 1865 and 1866. These journals are brief recordings of his daily life, weather, how many hours he worked for his father, how many animals he shot or caught, and more pertinent information from his farm life.

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