March 6 Saturday – Sam wrote twice from Hartford to Livy. He’d seen “a dozen or two” of the illustrations for Innocents Abroad, and wrote that they were “very artistically engraved.” He praised the talents of the engraver, Truman “True” Williams. Sam had promised Livy he would visit John and Isabella Hooker (1822-1907), part of the Beecher clan, who lived in a 100-acre parcel east of Hartford called “Nook Farm.” He ventured out in a snowstorm to visit the “Burton branch” of the Hookers (John’s and Isabella’s daughter and husband, Henry Burton.) Sam expressed misgivings about the Hookers, admitting to feelings of discomfort at their home, but that for Livy, he’d visit them “fifty times,” and his desire to “learn to like them with all my might” for Livy’s sake. Sam’s second letter to Livy late that night related walking from his hotel to Nook Farm in the snow, only to find them not at home [MTL 3: 138-48]. Note: Isabella Hooker made up her own theology, and her husband was a melancholy hypochondriac—not exactly Sam’s sort of folk.