From February 12 - 18, 1869: Ravenna, Ohio; Alliance, Ohio; Titusville, Pennsylvania; Franklin, Pennsylvania. "During February the engagements grew spotty again, though they took him erratically through Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York." (Lorch pg 96). Twain departed Cleveland for Elmira February 2 and arrived on the 4th. He departed Elmira on the 12th, arriving in Cleveland on the 13th. Sam left Elmira “at the last minute and slept overnight on the train back to Cleveland. He wrote from Cleveland to Livy:
Livy, darling, (10 AM.) I have been here two hours in a splendid state of exasperation. I went to bed in the cars at half past nine, last night & slept like a log until 7 this morning, & woke up thoroughly refreshed. The first thing Mrs. Fairbanks said was, “where were you last night?—a telegram came from Alliance at 8 o’clock, saying “Splendid audience assembled—where is Mark Twain?—somebody will be responsible for this.”
I said “Alliance?—never heard of it!”
And she said Mr. Fairbanks made the appointment for me, & would have telegraphed me but didn’t know where to telegraph—didn’t know but that I had left Elmira—& as my letter from there (received last Monday), said I would reach here on the 12th, he didn’t think it necessary to telegraph me anyhow. What abominable absurdity! I said, “Will you never learn anything? Are you going to be the same astonishing old aggregation of nonsense all the days of your life? Didn’t you know I would stay in Elmira to the very last moment?—& didn’t you know that Livy would be certain to know where I was, & that a telegram to Charley would find me?”—& so on, till she threatened to take the broomstick to me. So you see, I must foot those Alliance bills—it would be dishonorable to do otherwise—& I must make a long trip west in the Spring & deliver that lecture free of charge—as nearly as I can come at it the failure to expend a dollar on a telegram will result in costing me two hundred dollars, four days lost time & five hundred miles of travel—& yet Fairbanks’ letter to me, which should have gone to Jacksonville or Galena by telegraph, is still chasing around the country somewhere. I have begged him, & those execrable agents of mine always to use the telegraph, but I can’t get them to do it. The U.S. Mail has cost me some fifteen hundred dollars this season, & I would heartily wish it sunk to the bottom of the sea, only that it is so useful to me in hearing from you, Livy. So we will let the U.S. Mail still live, my darling—I can’t possibly do without it.
“SLC to Olivia L. Langdon, 13 Feb 1869, Cleveland, Ohio (UCCL 00247).”
February 13,1869: Day's Hall, Ravenna, Ohio
Cleveland to Pittsburgh Railroad, 34 miles to Ravenna, Ohio
Dear Mother—
The lecture to-night was a handsome success. I shall lecture in Alliance tomorrow night—this will stop the publication of that article I wrote for the Alliance paper, & take the blame off Mr. Fairbanks’ shoulders, & I am mighty glad of it. He could stand it, I know, because he can stand anything when he chooses to put his philosophy on its mettle, but then we don’t want to worry him, do we?
I talk in Titusville Tuesday—in Franklin Wednesday—in Geneseo Thursday—in Auburn Friday—& I lecture Livy Saturday & Sunday. Is all that satisfactory to my venerable & honored mother?
Give my love to all the household, & believe me the most loving & dutiful cub you have got.
Sam.
P.S. ‸“E-uck!”‸ I just hove a “sigh.”
“SLC to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 13 Feb 1869, Ravenna, Ohio (UCCL 00248).”
February 15, 1869: Alliance, Ohio
Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad, 17 miles to Alliance, Ohio
February 16, 1869: Corinthian Hall, Titusville, Pennsylvania
Twain traveled back to Ravenna then to Cleveland. From Cleveland, the Cleveland, Painseville and Ashtabula Railroad, 79 miles to Girard and 15 miles from Girard to Erie on an unnamed railroad. From Erie to Corry, the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad, 35 miles. From Corry, 25 miles to Titusville and another 23 miles to Franklin on unnamed railroads.
Sam wrote from Titusville, Pennsylvania to Livy, February the 17th
Livy dear, I don’t feel a bit well this morning, & so I cannot write. I left Ravenna about noon, Monday, for Alliance—lectured there that night—sat up till 2 in the morning (because no porter at hotel to call me,) & returned on a coal train to Ravenna—got to the Ravenna hotel just at 4 o’clock in the morning—went to bed for one hour & a half & then got up half asleep & started in the early train for this Titusville section of country—had to wait from 1 P.M. till 5, at Corry, Pa., & so I found an excellent hotel & went to bed—but several merchants of the place (I use the nom de plume on hotel registers when I am a stranger & want a choice room,) saw my name on the register & called to see me (it was business, not idle curiosity—they wanted to get me to lecture,) & when they were gone I was feverish & restless & couldn’t sleep. And at 5 I got up & soon started for this place, arriving just in fair time to open the lecture. I have slept late, this morning, but still I feel stupiefied & idiotic. Good audience, & highly gratified with the lecture.
“SLC to Olivia L. Langdon, 17 Feb 1869, Titusville, Pa. (UCCL 00255).” In Mark Twain’s Letters, 1869.
No reviews of Clemens’s 17 February lecture in Franklin have been located. The previous evening, in Titusville, his performance had been disrupted by
"an unseemly disturbance in the rear of the hall, which was equally annoying to the audience and the speaker. A policeman was present, and was in duty bound to eject the blackguard summarily, instead of doing which, as he was directed, he only parleyed with him, and the noise and confusion were kept up with impunity." (“Mark Twain’s Lecture Last Evening,” Titusville Morning Herald, 17 Feb 69, 3)
“SLC to Mary Mason Fairbanks, 17 Feb 1869, Franklin, Pa. (UCCL 00258).”
February 17, 1869: Franklin, Pennsylvania
From Franklin, Twain then returned to Elmira.
To the Young Men’s Association of Geneseo Academy, per Telegraph Operator
18 February 1869 • Franklin, Pa.
(Paraphrase: Geneseo [N.Y.] Genesee Valley Herald, 24 Feb 69, UCCL 04736)
The Y. M. A. had nearly completed arrangements for his lecture, and were still at work, about 10 o’clock on Thursday forenoon, when a telegram was received saying that he was “unavoidably detained,” and could not reach here that evening. Telegrams were sent him, and all possible means employed to get him here that evening, if possible, but, of course they were of no avail. He having said that he would be in Elmira until the 22d inst., telegrams and letters were sent him there,
According to the Rochester (N.Y.) Chronicle, Clemens sent a dispatch to Geneseo “to say that he had been delayed somewhere in Pennsylvania and missed the train” (“‘Mark Twain’ disappointed . . . ,” 20 Feb 69, 3, TS in CU-MARK). He later implied that he telegraphed from Franklin: “while I could have made Geneseo easily enough from Titusville, I couldn’t do it from Franklin. So I telegraphed them to stop the lecture & send my bill, which they did. I paid it—$22.25” (27 Feb 69 to Fairbanks). The Genesee Valley Herald, whose account of Clemens’s communications is preserved verbatim in this and the next three letter texts, called his “non-arrival” a “sore disappointment, not only to the Young Men’s Association, but to many in this and surrounding towns” (“Mark Twain’s Lecture,”).
“SLC to Young Men’s Association of Geneseo Academy ... , 18 Feb 1869, Franklin, Pa. (UCCL 04736).”