January 25 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Karl & Hattie Gerhardt, beginning the letter this day and finishing it on Feb. 6.

Sam also wrote to (Henry) Clinton Parkhurst, a soldier, correspondent and writer from LeClaire, Iowa. At the age of fifteen he enlisted with the 16th Iowa Infantry.. He was a captive for seven months in the Confederate prison at Andersonville. After the war he returned to LeClaire and worked as a correspondent for the Davenport Democrat. He later went west, settling in San Francisco where he worked with various newspapers. Sam may have met him there. Parkhurst also worked for papers in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Illinois and wrote poetry and fiction. Some of his literary works were published, but many were not, a fact which he attributed to personal failure and injustices of publishers and fellow writers. He occasionally used the pen name Clinton Rollins. Sam gave him the benefit of his lessons about copyright:

“No, if my ten years of effort have taught me any valuable lesson, it is to consider all time given to trying to get our copyright laws put into proper shape, wasted. From that line of endeavor, I have retired permanently” [MTP].

Sam saw more promise in pursuing plagiarism as a trademark violation:

“I have won two trade-mark suits & lost a third. I will not believe that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide against me until I have tried.”

Charles Webster wrote that he’d “not closed with Newman yet.” Also he’d seen Mr. De Forest at Tiffany’s who “promised to send one of the carved boards right away, the price is $20” MTP].