This collection contains one typed transcription of the diary of Colin Edward King, as well as his original diary covering the years of 1878 to 1883. Colin Edward King describes his time at Butler from 1878 to 1881 when he received his A.B. The diary then describes his life working for his father in Indianapolis until he leaves to take a position in Chicago. According to the Butler College Alumni Directory 1856-1912, he became a cashier at the Federal Life Insurance Company in Chicago.

The original diary is a large brown ledger book containing about 10 pages of accounting by Edward King from 1841 to 1843 in Columbus, Ohio. Edward King was Colin’s father. It appears that Colin then took over the ledger to keep his diary. Per repository documentation, the transcription was created by Special Collections after purchasing the diary. Transcription does not include the accounting pages.

Although the original diary includes pages of accounting from the 1840s by Colin Edward King’s father, this was not included in the dates as the focus of the collection is the diary. In addition, there are brief notes from February 1903 and March 1913 in the original diary; these are not a part of the transcript.