March 31 Tuesday – Isabel Lyon’s journal:  “The King is going boating with Nicholas Murray Butler and Lord Gray [sic Grey] who arrived yesterday on the Bermudian” [MTP: IVL TS 40-41]. Note: Albert Henry George Grey, 4th Earl Grey (1851–1917) served as Canada’s Ninth Governor General (1904-1911). He established the Grey Cup for the Canadian football championship. The Cup was initially for the top amateur rugby team in 1909, but since 1965 it has been the prize for the top professional football team.

At the Princess Hotel in Hamilton, Bermuda Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally at St. Timothy’s School in Catonsville, Maryland.

Your letter has come, Francesca dear, you dear indefinite little body! But anyway, you are coming to New York, & that is something. I do hope your mother will let me have you part of the time.

Won’t she go to the Grosvenor? It is the nicest, quietest, genteelest little hotel in all New York. We have used no other for a good many years. It is on the corner of 10th and 5th avenue, just a block from our house. Tell her I know she will like the Grosvenor.

We sail April 11, arriving the 13th a day or so before you arrive. Do you know my telephone address (it isn’t in the book): “3907 Gramercy.”  With love … [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Dorothy Quick.

Insert Below: Pitt’s Bay with Bay House on left, Princess Hotel on right.

You dear little Dorothy, this is only a line to say I hope you are not still looking out upon the snow-storms from a sick bed & taking “77,” but are up & around & well again. Next time you are sick you must come to Bermuda, then you won’t need any medicines.

We sail for home April 11, & then I shall see you./ Lovingly … [MTP]. Note: Humphreys #77 was a common cold medicine of the day.

According to D. Hoffman this is the day Sam met another angelfish, Helen Schuyler Allen (b. 1894), thirteen year old daughter of William H. Allen and Marion Schuyler Allen. William Allen was the vice-consul under W. Maxwell Greene. Helen’s grandmother, Susan Elizabeth Allen, then 82, knew Olivia Langdon Clemens when she was only a small child (Susan died in 1909). Sam knew Helen’s grandfather, Charles Allen when he was American consul in the days of Innocents Abroad. Helen was not a tourist, but lived across Pitt’s Bay from the hotel. She had come to watch the dancing at the hotel [120]. Note: In his Apr. 17, 1908 A.D. he described Helen Allen as “aged 13, native of Bermuda, perfect in character, lovely in disposition, and a captivater at sight!” [140].

Note: Hoffman also writes that Sam visited Susan Allen when he learned of the family’s Elmira connections, and talked for an hour and a half [120]. Hoffman does not specify if the visit was on this day, but since the dancing was in the evening, the visit was likely the following day, or later. Helen would visit Sam at Stormfield on Oct. 16-17, 1909.   / Bay House & Princess Hotel

Lawrence B. Evans wrote to advise Sam that at a meeting of the Boston Authors Club he’d been elected an honorary member [MTP]. Note: IVL: “Answd April 3 – Mr. C. in Bermuda, wd. File carefully to mail, etc.”

Howells & Stokes wrote to Sam that Isabel Lyon had authorized proceeding with the sleeping porch. They also advised of other details and blueprints and mantels [MTP].

Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Isabel Lyon (though catalogued as to Clemens); would he consent to a flat royalty of $50 per week for all performances of “How I Became an Editor” for Arnold Daly? [MTP].