February 27 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to George W. McCrary (1835-1890), Secretary of War under Hayes from Mar. 12, 1877 to Dec. 11, 1879, enclosing a letter of Sam’s outlining reasons why the Seaman Support Law should be ended.

When Duncan got up his commissionership & Seaman Association projects, all of us who knew him, knew he was purposing to rob somebody; but what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business—so nobody interfered. This Duncan is one of the vilest men that exits to-day; & I am exceedingly sorry that I have numbered myself with the silent ones all these years [MTLE 2: 3].

Notes: It’s not clear why Sam felt McCrary was someone who should be made aware of the hated law and of Duncan’s thievery, but it’s probable that Sam had met McCrary, who practiced law in Keokuk, Iowa from 1856, was elected as a Republican to the Forty-first and to the three succeeding Congresses (Mar. 4, 1869 to Mar. 3, 1877); was chairman, Committee on Elections (Forty-second Congress), and Committee on Railways and Canals (Forty-third Congress). McCrary’s Washington experience suggests that Sam felt he was the man to get the word to the right people.

Sam also wrote to sister Pamela Moffett about her son’s visit to Hartford, and more importantly, the issues that had been center stage in Sam’s mind.

“We greatly enjoyed Sam’s visit, but it must have [been] intolerably stupid to him. I was in a smouldering rage, the whole time, over the precious days & weeks of time which Bret Harte was losing for me—so I was in no company for Sam or anybody else” [MTLE 2: 35].

Sam ordered Alfred Rimmer’s Ancient Streets and Homesteads of England (1877) from Osgood & Co. and was billed $7.50 in Nov. 1877 [Gribben 581].

February 27–March 9 Friday – Sometime between these dates, probably closer to Mar. 9, Sam traveled to Boston and stayed with the Howellses and also at the Parker House [MTLE 2: 36].