November 26 Saturday – Sam left Boston by train for the 200 miles to Montreal, staying at the Windsor Hotel. He arrived at about 9:15 P.M. [MTBus 178; MTNJ 2: 407]. Sam took three history volumes of Francis Parkman to read on the train. On Nov. 28 he asked Livy to send a fourth, The Old Regime in Canada, as he would finish the other three by Nov. 30 [Gribben 534].

From Sam’s notebook:

Before reaching Essex, Met a military friend who turned the big compartment into a smoking room by force—a thing which I had been trying to do by persuasion all day.

20 m from St Albans xd the line & prepared to tell a lot of feeble & unsatisfactory lies to account for the preponderance of cigars & Scotch whisky over clothes & theology in my baggage (2 satchels), but the official merely glanced at the giddy array & offered no objections.

After St. John’s[bury] a nice train boy sold me some photo views, & tried to sell me a pirated Tom Sawyer, but I told him that this very day a mighty fine man recognized me by my portrait & wouldn’t let me pay for my supper—said the author of Tom Sawyer couldn’t pay for anything at his board—& now here are you trying to deplete my store with a pirated edition. He asked my pardon [MTNJ 2: 406-7].

James R. Osgood traveled to Montreal a few days later [MTNJ 2: 404n168].

Charles Webster wrote to Sam, having rec’d his telegram (not extant). Copper would not melt in their furnace so he was starting up on brass again on Monday. He planned on going to Hartford on Friday with gentlemen interested in investing in the typesetter: D. Appleton, Wm. Payton, Gen. McCook, Wm. Hicks and Geo. W. Childs of Phila. plus someone from the NY Times [MTP].