Two diaries kept by Charles Plummer, one while he was traveling from Boston to San Francisco in 1849 and one while he was sailing from Boston to Brazil in 1863-1864. The 1849 diary begins with Plummer's preparations to leave Boston and his joining of the New England and California Trading and Mining Association. He departed from Boston on the ship Lenore in February 1849 and while on board recorded notes on brigs he has seen (including his tracking of the brig Charlotte), a minstrel's concert on board, his stop at the Port of Talcahuana (Chile), and notes on the flying fish and birds he has seen, including the capture of an albatross. He also writes of difficulties with the Association, noting that various members had been tried on board for "deception, falsehood, neglect of duty, intemperance &c." In July the Lenore put down anchor near Benicia and Plummer was chosen to join a "pioneer party to the mines" which traveled up the Sacramento River to the Feather River and set up a "gold washer." The trip was ultimately disappointing, and things did not improve upon the party's return to the Lenore, where on September 10 "a mutiny...result[ed] in the dissolution of our company." In November the Lenore was sold and Plummer stayed for a few months in San Francisco, which was "truly a dark time," as his companion Morris had dysentery and Plummer suffered from a "bad cough [and] two very sore fingers." He wrote that their only opportunity for the winter might be to "go to the mines," which he hoped to avoid at all costs. In December Plummer came down with dysentery and began taking opium pills, and made few further entries in the diary until he gave it up completely on December 18. The 1863-1864 diary finds Plummer more accustomed to sea life than he had been in 1849, and he writes that "familiarity...divests the ocean of much of its beauty & its terror, and the daily incidents of life on shipboard, of all their novelty." The diary begins in October after Plummer has left Boston on the British brig Despatch. bound for Pernambuco and Bahia (now Salvador), Brazil, where Plummer planned to sell flour. During the voyage he recorded the perceived incompetence of various crew members, continued poor weather, and the lack of animal life ("Where are all the fish and birds usually seen upon the ocean?...To sail through this vast region...& see nothing, something's wrong!"). Due to a miscalculation the Despatch missed Pernambuco by 90 miles and did not anchor there until mid-December. During his brief stay in Pernambuco Plummer met a Pennsylvania abolitionist who told him that the English (but not the Brazilian) residents supported the Confederacy. After arriving in Bahia Plummer quickly became frustrated in his dealings with the Health and Custom House Offices, which delayed his offloading of flour ("the Custom House...deals with every one as if...a pick-pocket of the lowest order, that must have every impediment thrown in his way," he wrote). He was delayed in Bahia for 35 days, to do what "might be done in one of our Cities in five days." During the delay Plummer wrote of the African population of Bahia and their various festivals. He departed in January 1864, and during the return voyage he recorded his interactions with the ship's "boy" who had "been in the army of the Potomac," wrote of shooting at a whale that followed the ship, and described the ship's cook, who was "a good specimen of a freed slave...he has rheumatism and no shoes...nor any warm clothing." He also reminisced about being raised by his father and sisters after his mother's death and of his "pursuit of the almighty dollar." The diary ends after the Despatch anchored in Boston in March 1864.
