Manuscripts Collection
A typescript copy of a detailed journal kept by Bond, June 1862-January 1863, while serving as secretary-journalist on the James L. Fisk expedition of 1862 to escort emigrants and gold-seekers through the Dakota Territory. The journal describes the expedition from Bond's starting point in St. Paul, the expedition's rendezvous and departure from Fort Abercrombie, arrivals at Fort Benton and Walla Walla, to Bond's return trip through Oregon and along the Pacific coastline to submit his official report in Washington.
The typescript is a bound volume consisting of 235 leaves copied from Bond's original journal for the Minnesota Historical Society by Becky Goldbarg in 1922-1923 and collated by Becky Goldbarg, Grace Lee Nute, and Veronica Houle.. A three leaf addendum added by Bond on September 4, 1920 and a copy of a bill of sale executed July 7, 1862 between two of the expedition's emigrants are also included. Annotations to the journal made by Bond at a later date are shown in the typescript in red pencil. Corrections to the typescript were made by Veronica Houle in pencil.
Bond's official account of the expedition was included as part of the report by James L. Fisk transmitted to the U.S. House of Representatives by the Secretary of War in 1863. A published copy of the transmittal is available in the Minnesota Historical Society library under the title:
A description of how the Minnesota Historical Society acquired its copy of the journal is reported in
The original journal is in the collections of the Ipswich Historical Society, Ipswich, Massachusetts.
A Photostat copy of the original journal is in the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should
Accession number: 2034B, 7531
Processed by: Kathryn A. Johnson, July 1997; Monica Manny Ralston, May 1999
Catalog ID number: 09-00319516
The journal begins as Bond departs with the expedition officers from St. Paul, Minnesota on June 19, 1862 and continues through the expedition's final point in Walla Walla, Washington Territory on November 1, 1862. The journal also details Bond's seagoing return trip via Oregon, British Columbia, California, Mexico, and Panama to New York City on January 1, 1863. Bond, a St. Paul lawyer, was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1834 and died in Washington, D.C. in 1922.
The Fisk expedition, led by James L. Fisk, was financed and supported by the U.S. Congress to protect and lead emigrants to gold fields in the Dakota Territory. Notable persons who accompanied the approximately 130 fortune seekers included Nathaniel P. Langford, second assistant; William D. Dibb, physician; and Pierre Bottineau, guide.
Leaving St. Paul, the expedition passed through Anoka, St. Cloud, and St. Joseph in Minnesota; rendezvoused with emigrants at Fort Abercrombie on July 3; passed through the Sheyenne River area, Fort Union, and arrived near Fort Benton on September 5. From Fort Benton a portion of the expedition party continued on to Walla Walla in the Washington Territory where they arrived November 1.
This first part of the journal contains many details on the expedition, including descriptions of the expedition officers and emigrants, camp life, buffalo hunts, grizzly bear sightings, Indian encounters, traveling conditions, river crossings, settlements, forts, fur trading posts, mining towns, gold prospecting, topographical and geological features, trees, wildlife, and weather. On pages 130-132 appears a transcription of a September 19, 1862 letter of commendation addressed to Fisk that lists the names of 85 emigrants who left the train at that time to prospect in the region of the Prickly Pear Creek Valley (known today as the Helena Valley of Montana).
The latter portion of the journal (pp. 193-235) describes both the last days of the expedition as it reached its final destination at Walla Walla and the final portion of Bond's journey to Washington (D.C.) where he wrote his official expedition report. The last leg of Bond's journey was completed on several steamships sailing from Wallula (Washington Territory) on the Columbia River to Portland and Astoria (Oregon), north along the Pacific Coast to Esquimalt and Victoria (British Columbia), and back down the coast arriving in San Francisco on November 22. From San Francisco Bond took passage on the
Although regular journal entries cease after Bond boarded the
A four-page addendum added by Bond in 1920 describes his effort to locate his brother, John Hilton Bond, while returning from the Fisk Expedition. Bond's brother left Massachusetts in 1848-1849 for California and the family had received no correspondence from him since 1854-1855. While in California Bond learned that his brother was living in Aspinwall, working as an engineer for the Panama Railroad Company, where Bond subsequently found him.