August 5 Tuesday – In Onteora Park near Tannersville, N.Y. Sam telegraphed to Franklin G. Whitmore:

Tell me by telegraph before night if the alterations have been made in the contract for the delay in damaging the chances [MTP]

Sam also wrote a letter to Whitmore concerning a day and night trial of the machine in Hartford. Sam deduced that James W. Paige and his assistant Charles Ethan Davis did not believe the machine was up to sustained operation over several days, though Sam thought they would be proven wrong. The goal would be a 60 day and night test in New York. Meanwhile, the typesetter was in Paige’s Hartford shop:

I want power provided for all-day-&-night work at Union Place, & I want the test applied. Then we can go to New York on a certainty, not a theory — we shall know how many hours to subject her to, per day.

After his signature Sam asked that Whitmore send him the “noble old pair of walking shoes in my pigeon holes,” and the “coarse yarn socks” if he found them there as well [MTP].

Orion Clemens wrote a one page letter all about Ma, who talked incessantly for ten hours and asked for Sam several times. “1 p.m. 4 hours later. Ma has still talked on, and does not look so well. Her eyelids droop. Her expression is discouraging” [MTP].

James W. Paige wrote to Sam:

Your favor of the 30th inst. came duly to hand while I was suffering from a very severe attack of cholera-morbus. … I have obtained the paper referred to in your letter from Mr. Whitmore, and will give it my attention in a few days. There are some things concerning the machine that require my personal supervision, which in my present state of health will be all that I can attend to [MTP].