Island's History On Microfilm
p. 79 · Read in the full issue
Historical documents of Norfolk Island interest are still being turned up.
On a recent visit to the island, Robert Langdon, executive officer of the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau of the Australian National University, micro filmed these documents among others: • A diary begun on Norfolk Island by John Buffett on June 8, 1856, the day the Pitcairners arrived in the Morayshire. • A journal of whaling voyages in the bark Canton, from 1881 to 1902, and in the bark Petrel, 1887, kept by Norfolk Islander Robert Edward Buffett. • An account book and diary kept on Norfolk from 1881 to 1902, and in the Solomons from 1905 to 1921, by trader Charles H.
Buffett. • Runs of Norfolk Island newspapers of the thirties, the Norfolk Island Weekly News and the Norfolk Island Times. John Buffett’s diary was written in a Commissariat register of Norfolk’s convict era, which apparently Buffett found in one of Kingston’s deserted buildings when he came ashore from the Morayshire.