September 3 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Mary Mason Fairbanks. Sam encouraged Mary to visit, and wrote about his desire to travel to Germany next May 1,  “& settled down in some good old city…& never stir again for 6 months. Then come home.” Sam’s mother was visiting Quarry Farm, and the Clemens family would go home to Hartford the next day [MTLE 2: 148].

Also possibly on this day, Livy and Sam wrote from Elmira to the Howlands, Robert and Louise. Robert Howland was a buddy from Sam’s Nevada days, the man responsible for gathering a list of Carson City dignitaries to encourage Sam to lecture there on his first Nevada circuit. Livy thanked them for a picture they’d sent of their daughter and invited them to visit Hartford. Sam wrote that the Howland girl was “a marvel of grace & beauty” [MTLE 2: 149].