April 6 Thursday – Annie A. Fields (Mrs. James T. Fields; 1834-1915) wrote in her diary of a visit by her and her husband to Hartford and of Sam:

He was very interesting and told James the whole story of his life….He described the hunger of his childhood for books, how the Fortunes of Nigel [by Sir Walter Scott] was one of the first stories which came to him while he was learning to be a pilot on a Mississippi boat. He hid himself with it behind a barrel, where he was found by the Master, who read him a lecture upon the ruinous effects of reading [Gribben 615].

Sam wrote a 2nd letter to the editor of the Hartford Courant about Niles Street sinking. It ran on Apr. 7.