August 13 Wednesday – In New York on this date, Sam signed a new contract drawn up by James W. Paige, who sold all rights in his typesetter for $250,000. Sam was to pay Paige this amount within six months, which put him behind the gun to acquire major financing [MTHL 3: 571].

At the Murray Hill Hotel, Sam wrote again to Franklin G. Whitmore, who was vacationing at Montewest House in Branford, Conn.

Paige comes down here tomorrow, & we go together to hear Jones’s objections & rectify them on the spot [Note: Sam intended to go to Washington to convince Jones].

Charles Ethan Davis, mechanical engineer and Paige’s assistant, had offered to work on simply “for a hundred dollars now & then,” and he would see who would stay at half wages, as Sam had suggested. He also disclosed that Livy was headed to Elmira the next day (Aug. 14) for a week. Livy’s mother, Olivia Lewis Langdon, was failing [MTP]. Powers writes that Livy and the children went to Elmira, but Livy wrote Aug. 24 to her mother upon return to Onteora Park that “I found the children all in good health and they seemed very glad to get me back…” [Salsbury 279]. Powers also claims that “a double barrel of anxiety arrived on August 14” when word that both mothers were gravely ill, yet this Aug. 13 letter shows that news of Mrs. Langdon’s illness reached them prior to news about Jane Clemens.

Kaplan gives this as the date that John P. Jones “acquired a six-month option to organize a parent company to make and market the [Paige] machine [304]. By this date, Joe Goodman was back in Fresno, however, so it’s more likely that the Jones option was obtained in Sam’s late-August trip to Washington.

Sam and Paige traveled to Washington. If Paige left Hartford in the morning and met Sam in N.Y., the pair would have taken the rest of the day to travel to Washington.

Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam about various “schemes” to raise capital [MTP].