Henry Osman Fisher was born on October 23, 1872 in Addison, Vt. to Osman and Emma (Smith) Fisher. In 1894, Fisher was hired to sell Merino sheep and left Vermont for New York City. In November of that year, he and his brother-in-law, Carlton Watson Sprague, sailed to South Africa with 35 sheep. Fisher and Sprague landed in Cape Town and sold the sheep in Bloemfontein, before returning to the U.S. in April 1895. Fisher returned to South Africa the following year, selling sheep in Port Elizabeth and Molteno on behalf of C.W. Mason. Fisher made a third trip overseas in 1897, this time selling sheep in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Eventually, Fisher left the sheep exporting business and returned to Vermont to run a farm in Panton, where he married Jessie May Field (1879-1967) on August 3, 1906. The couple had two children, Osman Field Fisher (1910-1993) and Ellen Bigelow (1907-1987). Fisher was a Freemason (Union Lodge No. 2, Middlebury) and was a charter member of Otter Creek Chapter No. 74 of the Order of the Eastern Star in Vergennes.
Topics in this diary include the international Merino sheep trade, selling livestock in Africa and South America, the perils of turn-of-the-century sea travel, and meteorological phenomena on the Atlantic Ocean.
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