Journal and accounts

The volume also includes Kelso family accounts dated 1789-1806, and one page of accounts in Louisiana in 1782; two verses of an untitled patriotic poem by H. Thomas; and a brief entry dated January 24, 1798, noting the plan of Joseph Kelso to go to the East Indies.

Volume containing Kelso's journal (May 10-October 9, 1792) of a trip with Simpson on three flatboats that they constructed for the purpose of transporting flour from Fort Pitt down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans. The brief entries describe their daily travels, noting settlements that were later to be founded including Point Pleasant, West Virginia, Cincinnati, and Louisville. Kelso notes observing Indians, killing a bear, and meeting inhabitants of Natchez, Baton Rouge, Atakapass (where the flatboats were disposed of), and New Orleans. As the men were unable to sell the flour easily it was sold in Atakapass for cattle, which they had butchered and sold in New Orleans. The final entries (December 11, 1792-October 22, 1893) describe Kelso and Simpson's voyages from New Orleans to Alexandria, Virginia, via Havana, during which they were captured, imprisoned on St. Thomas, and then released from the crew of a British warship, finally landing at Alexandria on October 22, 1893.