On March 1, 1916, John Buzzell began a journal of his daily activities. For readers more than 125 years later, it opens a fascinating window onto an ordinary life in the village of Cherry River of Orford Township. He and Julia Wilson had a small farm producing butter, eggs, potatoes and beans, and a few animals. These were sold in Magog as well as being for home consumption and so his diary provides his careful accounts of the farm. He was also employed by the lumber company, Prouty and Miller, whose large mill was in Newport, Vermont. The details of work at the company’s log landing in Cherry River will absorb today’s readers. The diary reports more than his work, however.  He also describes, albeit in a telegraphic style, the doings of his family and his community, including some difficult moments. Despite the repetitive quotidian of this typical diary, the careful reader will find clear signs that change was in the wind, for him and for Cherry River.

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The document has three chapters: an essay about John Buzzell and Julia Wilson; a transcription of his diary from 1916-1917; and a chapter identifying the almost 100 persons whose doings he mentions in the diary. 

For those who wish delve into it further, we also provide the original hand-written diary (as a pdf) for the 12 months from 1 March 1916 to the end of February 1917 as well as a few weeks in October and November 1917.  
 

Document, English version