And so, the morning of July 15, 1895, Twain slouched into Buffalo for a two-hour layover. This was the last time he ever visited Buffalo, where he once lived as a newlywed, a first-time father and a newspaper owner and managing editor. His old Buffalo friend Charles M. Underhill collected Twain, his wife, Olivia, and daughter Clara by carriage at the Exchange Street station.
Underhill whisked the women off for a quick visit with his wife, Emma. Twain had read about the spectacular marble and granite Blocher Memorial in Forest Lawn, and wanted to see it, hoping to write an article about it. According to Underhill, “the monument did not stir him,” and Twain dismissed it as a possible subject for a story. On the carriage ride from the cemetery back to Underhill’s house, a dejected Twain confided that “he hadn’t anything more to write about, that he had got to the end.” An hour or so later, Twain and family returned to Buffalo’s train station and proceeded to Cleveland.