[Paul Bowman]

While doing some genealogy research I came across the "Diary of William Fairfax Gray", a Virginia land speculator who gave detailed descriptions of his travels by land and rivers on a quest to buy property in Texas. He first boards the steamboat "Wave" in Guyandotte (Huntington,WV?), then the "Algonquin", in Cinn. and the "Chancellor" in Vicksburg, landing in New Orleans in December, 1835. This diary is important to Texas historians because of his detailed descriptions of life in Texas just before the Alamo, but his daily dairy entries of life on the steamboats and the people riding them should be valuable to steamboat historians as well. There are lots of steamboat names and town descriptions......a real treat.

Click on this link

http://smu.edu/swcenter/FairfaxGray/wg_007.htm

click on the "page+" to move through the diary.

Hope this is helpful.

Paul Bowman