William F. Carne was born in Alexandria in August 1832. He was the Alexandria correspondent for the Washington Evening Star from August 1853 to September 1856, when he went to another regional paper. Later in life, he would become known as a local historian of Alexandria. He was also involved in the Alexandria Library Company, but less so during the period of the diary.
The 1853-1854 diary documents the intimate details of Carne's daily life, and includes scraps of paper dated 50 years later (1903-1904), which at times seem to comment upon those earlier events.
[item identification], William F. Carne Papers, MS308, Alexandria Library, Local History and Special Collections, Alexandria, Virginia.