October 26 Thursday – Sam wrote to William Cullen Bryant. This is another letter soliciting feedback on one George Vaughan, a Virginia writer who authored Progressive Religious and Social Poems (see Oct. 25, 1875 to the editor of the Hartford Courant). Vaughan professed to be engaged in establishing a normal school for colored people in Virginia and that many prominent people, Bryant among them, had contributed to his fund. Sam discovered that Vaughan’s claim of Secretary of State Blaine was bogus and began a letter writing campaign to expose the fraud.

“Honored Sir: / If it is not asking too much will you kindly inform me if you did ever meet this person?—& if you authorized him to use your name? The names in his list are a far more efficient decoy than his feeble ‘endorsements.’ / Very Truly Yrs / Saml L. Clemens (Mark Twain)” [eBay item 280342636289; May 6, 2009].

Frank Fuller wrote to Sam, enclosing a NY Herald clipping from Sat. Oct. 21, “A Petroleum Plot” which is what Twain wrote on the env. Fuller was into some scheme involving a new kind of still [MTP].