Hope's Imperfection

Chapter 5: Richard

I eventually made it back to the Marriott and asked the front desk for a room for the evening. I was really racking up a bill on this credit card!

I went to the lobby and found a computer to check my emails. Still nothing from my mother and sister! I decided to make long distance calls from my hotel room to check in with my family. At my house I got the answering machine. I left a long message explaining where I had been and that I had finally been successful in picking up the diary for Grandma. I ended by telling Olivia and Frances that I would likely be home tomorrow and hung up. I also called my grandmother and left a similar message. No one wanted to talk to me! If I hadn’t been so caught up in this story I would have been upset at the distressing lack of communication.  However, I was enjoying my detective work and was proud that I had persisted and accomplished the safe acquisition of Richard’s journal.

I went up to the room, played my guitar, and finally got around to opening the diary. It wasn’t a lack of eagerness to delve into the book’s content; rather, I was in a ceremonial mood. It was in excellent condition despite being over two hundred years old! The exterior of the book was made of durable leather. I gently flipped through the thinning pages. The first page described the owner of the diary. The name was written in beautiful script which made the words clearly legible. Could this really be written by a twelve-year-old boy? It was almost calligraphic in its beauty. Yet there was the name, “Richard Stanhope”, who began this account on April 25, 1808. He was twelve years old.

I slowly turned to the first entry, careful not to break the paper, and began to read.

April 25th, 1808

Father gave me this diary last night. He asked me to record our journey from Montreal to the Oregon Territory.  I have decided to write in English rather than French or Latin as Father says that it will be the language spoken in our new home. I am sad to be leaving the Classical and Mathematical school that I have attended since I was four years old. Mr. McCord has come to the house tonight to wish our family well on our journey. I do not know why we must leave, but Father has important business in the new land. A passageway has been found across to the west coast of the continent. Mother is worried about the journey, but we are not going alone. We are meeting twenty families at a port on Lake Michigan, named Chicago, and all of us will travel together by wagon train to Oregon. My sisters are young (ten, nine, and seven) and the twins are five. Tomorrow we leave our home at sunrise. Our first destination is the city of York, the capital of Upper Canada. Our horses are fresh and it may take several days for us to reach York. There are several outposts that we will stop at along the way for rest and nourishment.

April 30th, 1808

Today we have arrived in York. It has taken five days to make the journey. We are the guests of Francis Gore, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. There is to be a formal dinner this evening for Mother and Father. My sisters and I will be going to bed early. I am looking forward to sleeping in a proper bed in a warm room. I had a bath this afternoon and washed off the mud from the trail. Mother is not feeling well. I think that we should turn back to Montreal. It is becoming very difficult for Mother to deal with the girls so we are going to hire a young woman to help look after all of the children on the journey. Her name is Cecelia. We will spend two more days at the Gore estate before continuing to Chicago.

May 2, 1808

Today we embark for Sault St. Marie. Father tells me that it will take three times as long to travel from York to Sault St Marie as it did to travel to York from Montreal. It seems like an incredibly long distance. Mother is not getting any better; she is coughing more now than when we left home. Once we arrive at Sault St. Marie we will cross over to America and sail Lake Michigan to Chicago. We hope to be in Chicago by the end of the month. Our party should leave Chicago for Oregon and travel the trail so that we may arrive at our final destination before winter begins. All of my sisters are very well and Cecelia has been a great help.