April 3 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Melville E. Stone (1848-1929), founder of the first penny newspaper in Chicago, the Chicago Daily News. Evidently Stone inquired about a controversy between a “Mr. Wakeman” and “the Club”—(probably the Press Club of Chicago). Sam offered five corrections to an article, which ran about the Army Reunion [MTLE 5: 63].

Rev. Cyril F. Knight (b. 1831) wrote on St. James Rectory, Lancaster, Penn. notepaper. “We heard of you not long ago through “Mary the Banner Woman”, & the kind letter wh’ came to her. / Mary is a character! “A leetle off” as you Yankees say—like most of the members of the Monday Club” [MTP]. File Note: “Knight was a member of Monday Evening Club 1872-91”; reference is to Mary Keily, patient at the Lancaster Insane Asylum. Knight was an Episcopal minister who tended to the needs of some of the patients.

Ella L. Cretors and Nancy Adelia Kelly wrote from Coldwater, Mich. to wheedle a picture of Mark Twain, and respond to his earlier reply that he didn’t have any left [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Impudent / Two school marms want his picture / 1880”.