July 23 Sunday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Will Bowen in St. Louis about his lecture plans and turning down $150 a night for 30 consecutive nights in Missouri and Kansas because Sam didn’t like “so much railroad travel” [MTL 4: 438].

The New York Times, on page 6, ran “A New Beecher Church,” by Mark Twain. The article also appeared in the July issue of American Publisher [Jerome and Wisbey 194]. Thomas K. Beecher’s new planned church in Elmira was the subject. The Times ran another article on page 4, “A New Church,” which questioned Sam’s article:

The writer of this account has on several occasions deluded a too credulous public with what appears to him practical jokes, and this tale of his may be only another joke; but if it is, it is admirably conceived and worthy to be made a fact.