March 15 Saturday – At the Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine, Fla. Sam wrote to Livy.

Dearheart, we came to the hotel to dine & wait for the evening train; but concluded to stay all night, for which I was glad, as I was very tired. I was in bed & asleep by 8 o’clock, but the others went to some kind of a show, & Hutton did not get to bed till after midnight—& the show wasn’t worth it.

I woke up pretty soon & entertained myself with heartburn for an hour—as I had done the night before—then sound asleep until 7; then up & dressed, & am waiting a few minutes for the others to assemble for breakfast. After breakfast we leave for Palm Beach, where there is another of these vast hotels vaster than this one, I believe. It is a 9 or 10-hour journey. We shall stay all night there—take ship, at Miami, if she is there. She is not there yet

Payne [sic Col. Augustus G. Paine] furnishes to Swoboda the paper he uses in those little directions & the outline figure of a man (two or three little pieces of paper for which the customer pays $10.) Just for that use Payne sends his paper by the car-load; each car containing 15 tons of paper.

Breakfast! Good-bye sweetheart, & love to you all [MTP].

Sam’s notebook: “Left 10.30. Arrived at 7 at the hotel Royal Poinciana, Palm Beach. To bed early” [NB 45 TS 6]. Sam’s ship log: “Left at 10.30 a.m.; arrived, at 7 p.m., at the Ponciana [sic], Palm Beach, Fla. Gambled.

Several lost” [MTP].

Livy’s diary: “Miss Crystal Eastman came for a two day’s visit” [MTP: DV161].