Submitted by scott on

Twain departed Elmira October 29 and arrived in Pittsburgh October 30..  He would have taken the Elmira and Wlliamsport to Williamsport. which was then leased to the Northern Central Railway; the Philadelphia and Erie to  Lockhaven;  Bald Eagle Valley Railroad to Tyrone;  the Pennsylvania (Altoona to Pittsburgh) to Pittsburgh.  


November 1 - Academy of Music, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania


There are questionable dates for November 2 in Sharon or Brookville, PA, November 3 in Johnstown, PA and November 8 in Worcester, MA   Lecture Schedule, 1868–1870, (MTDP 00329), n. 1. 

The trip from Pittsburgh to Brookville would have been aboard the Allegheny Valley to a point near West Hills then the Low Grade Division of the Pennsylvania.


November 2 Tuesday  Sam may have lectured in Brookville, Pennsylvania


No letters have been found for the week of 2–8 November. According to the itinerary that George L. Fall had sent Clemens on 27 October, his 1 November Pittsburgh lecture was to be followed the next day by a performance in Sharon, Pennsylvania, after which he was not to lecture again until 8 November, in Worcester, Massachusetts. On 28 October James Redpath had urged him to “stay at Elmira all the time between Sharon & Worcester” and on 1 November Redpath confirmed that “we have nothing between second and eighth” (Fall to SLC, 27 Oct 69; Redpath to SLC, 28 Oct 69, 1 Nov 69; all in Redpath Letterpress Book, 26, 51, 94, IaU). Nevertheless, a late substitution for Sharon and an addition may have been made, for the Pittsburgh Gazette of 2 November reported that Mark Twain “goes to Brookville [Pennsylvania] to-day and will stop at Johnstown [Pennsylvania] to lecture at the Opera House to-morrow evening. Great preparations are being made at both places to accord him that welcome he so richly deserves from an appreciative people” (“Mark Twain Last Night,” 4). No confirmation of this report has been found, but Clemens’s subsequent stop possibly was Hartford, on 4 or 5 November, in response to Elisha Bliss’s bulletin about royalties from the first three months’ sale of The Innocents Abroad: “We want to pay up. Shall we forward statement & check to you at Elmira or await your arrival here?” (Bliss to SLC, 1 Nov 69, CU-MARK). (Clemens’s first royalty check, on sales of some 15,500 books, but reduced by an 1868 advance of $1,000 and by $250 for copies sent to reviewers, probably came to around $1,845.) By the evening of Saturday, 6 November, Clemens was in Boston, attending the annual dinner of the Boston Press Club and accompanying his dinner companions to Selwyn’s Theatre to see Lady Audley’s Secret, a sensational melodrama based on Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s popular novel (1862). Boston then remained his base throughout November, while he was lecturing in New England. His 8 November Worcester lecture appears to have been canceled, however. Local papers did not advertise or review it, and the 1869–70 season program of the Worcester Lyceum and Natural History Association did not include it (copy in CU-MARK, courtesy of Dennis Laurie, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester; Boston Evening Transcript: “Amusements,” “Mark Twain...,” 6 Nov 69, 2; “Press Dinner,” 8 Nov 69, 4; Boston Evening Gazette: “Saturday Notes,” 7 Nov 69, 3, TS in CU-MARKHirst, 314; Hart 1950, 122).

"Editorial narrative following 30, 31 October and 1 November 1869 to Olivia L. Langdon ".


November 3 Wednesday  Sam may have lectured in Johnstown, Pennsylvania


To get to Johnstown, Twain could have back-tracked on the Allegheny Valley to Schenley and taken the Western Pennsylvania to Blairsville and from there, on the Pennsylvania to Johnstown.  If he had not gone to Brookville, the Pennsylvania Railroad could have taken him from Pittsburgh to Johnstown or further east.

Not listed   [MTL 3: 385].

Note: It is possible that Sam did not speak in Brookville or Johnstown – more newspaper evidence might confirm. Letters Sam wrote Livy between Nov. 6 and 9 (Livy’s numbers 129-132) are lost [MTL 3: 391n4].

Its hard for me to imagine that Sam would have passed up an opportunity to spend even one day with Livy, so I would think he returned to Elmira before going to Boston.  There does not seem to be any information on what Sam did after Pittsburgh.  My guess is he went to Elmira, from there to New York and Hartford and from there to Boston.

Webform