October 23 Friday – In Deal, N.J. Sam wrote to daughter Jean, giving some account of his activities for the last few days.  

Dear Jean: / I came down here yesterday to stay 2 or 3 days, & talk business with Col. Harvey.

It has suddenly turned cold. Yesterday it was fine weather, today is like November.

I stopped over in New York, night before […see this excerpt in Oct. 21 entry]

Our neighbor—our charming & lovable neighbor at Redding Jeannette Gilder—has been surprising & grieving us by falling ill—fatally ill we feared—but she is happily over it now, as I see by this morning’s paper, & I am glad.

Clara is leaving soon on her tour—I guess she is well prepared for it, & I think she is expected to have a very satisfactory time—a kind of pleasure excursion in fact. I hope it well turn out so.

There is a most kind word from Excellenz Frau von Versen. She is most kindly disposed toward you, and I feel very grateful to her.

I love you dearly & hope you are happy & prosperous. / With lots of love & kisses, / Father [MTP].

Sam left at noon. This was Dorothy Harvey’s 14th birthday [Oct 24 to Blackmer]. Lyon details his arrival (below).

Isabel Lyon’s journal: Tonight the King came back, very tired he was, and he literally tumbled out of the carriage, as is his wont. He was so glad to get home. Benar took him to his room and got him out of his clean white clothes and he went down to the library and stepped lovingly from point to point in it, reveling in the copper beauty of the big room, and dwelling with satisfaction on the big bunch of rich red sumach heads that I’d put in a copper bowl [MTP: IVL TS 74-75].

M.G. Rider wrote from Norwalk, Conn. to sell or give Sam some antiques [MTP]. Note: “to say if he were collecting” and “Ans. Oct 23 / 08 MLH”