Diary The Diary of Michael Shiner
Subtitle: Relating to the History of the Washington Navy Yard 1813-1869.
By: Transcribed With Introduction and Notes by John G. Sharp
Contributors: John G. Sharp  editor and transcriber
Edition: 2007
Publisher: Department of the Navy Naval Historical Center
Published: 12 October 2007
Place of publication: Washington D.C.
First sentence: Once when asked to describe himself, he answered, "I am a laboring man in the paint-shop in the Washington navy-yard." 1 Today Michael G. Shiner is famous for his diary chronicling events at the Washington Navy Yard and the District of Columbia from 1813 to 1869.
Description: Among the diary's better known passages are Michael Shiner's accounts of the War of 1812, the 1833 abduction of his family by slave dealers and the Washington Navy Yard strike of 1835. In Michael Shiner's lifetime (1805-1880) few if any of his acquaintances or family knew of his diary. It is only within the last few decades that scholars and historians have begun to examine his  manuscript more closely. The Michael Shiner manuscript was acquired by the Library of Congress sometime after 1905 (the exact date and provenance is uncertain). Except for the more celebrated passages mentioned above there has been  no complete transcription of Michael Shiner's diary. 

This is the first complete transcription and is an effort intiated by the editor and Navy Department Library to place Michael Shiner before a wider audience by providing a both a complete transcription of his manuscript and images  the original holograph manuscript now at the Library  of Congress. The Shiner Diary and transcription with accompanying introduction and notes are public domain.  
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/shinerdiary.html

John G. Sharp 
Concord Ca
Notes: Introduction and notes by John G. Sharp