While doing some other research in Library and Archives Canada some years ago, I came across a reference in the catalogue to an anonymous diary describing a journey from Derry to Canada in 1830. Intrigued, I took a copy of the manuscript and filed it away for later.

But the author’s anonymity bothered me, as did the formal structure and composition of the diary, and I couldn’t leave it be. Reading the manuscript closely, some clues emerged: first, the writer’s initials (DBL) and then, a surname: Little. A search in digitised Irish and Canadian newspapers of the period turned up a death notice of 1843 for David B. Little, merchant of Saint John, New Brunswick and originally from Derry. The provincial archives of New Brunswick supplied his probate record, where the middle initial ‘B’ emerged as ‘Blair’.

David Blair Little was of a family of merchants with connections to Canada. His brother John had a large ironmongery in Derry, and his brother James was a lumber merchant and pioneering forestry conservationist in Canada. 

David’s diary tells us about the intellectual world of middle-ranking Ulster merchants in the first half of the nineteenth century. His engagement with published accounts of travel and exploration is especially interesting. His diary refers to the most famous explorers of the age: James Cook, Mungo Park and John Franklin, comparing his experiences to theirs and demonstrating that he had read accounts of their expeditions. He even had a dream about John Franklin’s ill-fated overland Arctic expedition of 1819–22, during which 11 of a party of 20 died and the rest survived only by eating lichen and boiled leather. His diary also plagiarises published accounts of Canada by Scottish-Canadian artist George Heriot and American writer James Carver, particularly their observations on First Nations cultures and traditions. 

Overall, the 240-page manuscript is an interesting addition to surviving Irish migrant narratives of the pre-Famine period, and of Ulster experiences in Canada. The diary is also a reminder that first-person narratives are both authoritative and derivative. Just as a musician has a thousand melodies in their head every time they compose a piece, so are all of our perceptions and recollections coloured by all of our past experiences and interactions. 

My article on David Blair Little’s diary was published in Immigrants and Minorities (2019); read it here, or contact me for a pdf.