Emily Talbot Keller (1842-1931) was the daughter of Goddard D. Keller (1808-1883), a captain from a Maine logging family, and Betsy Simonton (1814-1851). Emily Talbot Keller married Josiah Munson (1832-1903) in Washington in 1859 and had seven children. She died in Oakland, California. Her family's Puget Mill Company became the oldest continually operating sawmill in the United States, in business from 1853 to 1995.
This diary records the trip Keller's family took from East Machias, Maine, around Cape Horn, and to Teekalet (later Port Gamble), Washington, between 1858 and 1859 on the ship Toando. The family was traveling to Washington to expand their lumber business into the West Coast. Traveling with Keller were her parents and siblings along with her brother Albert's family, including Albert's brother-in-law and Emily's future husbnad, Josiah Munson. The journal is addressed to Emily's friend Carrie (Cad) Harmon in Maine, and she writes of baking, making candy, knitting, sewing, and being bored. She notes the long days and freezing conditions at Cape Horn, where the crew experienced a hurricane, along with sightings of albatross and whales. At Christmas, she writes of her burgeoning romance with Josiah Munson and also includes some poems and original illustrations, including one of "Toando in a storm."