August 17 or 24 Wednesday –Sam wrote from Elmira or Buffalo to his sister Pamela Moffett.

“I will come as soon as I can leave Livy….My coming at this time would stop Livy’s progress; for whilst she sleeps but poorly now, she may be said to not sleep at all when I am away…she is weak & suffering….get all the gossip you can about Cousin James Lampton & family, without her knowing it is I that want it” [MTL 4: 184-5 – note: source is uncertain as to year of this letter]. Sam eventually based the model for Colonel Sellers in The Gilded Age on cousin James Lampton.