Diaries of broker, hardware merchant, and drug merchant Charles Edward French of Boston, Mass., 1851-1904 (with gaps), include descriptions of family activities; school attendance at the Adams School in East Boston; work at the hardware store of George H. Gray and Company early in his career; his ownernship of a hardware store and brokerage firm; work selling drugs, including opium; sexual attractions to others; views on local politics and the Civil War; autograph collecting; his father John French's interest in preserving public gardens; his own interest in preserving the Boston Common and other public gardens and cemeteries; and the weather. Also includeds account books, 1856-61; reminiscences of his childhood; poetry; and estate papers, 1905-07.
