November 5 Wednesday – Among those sending condolences on the death of Jane Clemens, Laurence Hutton’s note is not extant. Sam answered it today:

I thank you for the kind & sympathetic words. My sorrow was appeased when I saw the serene face in the coffin, every trace of care gone from it, & only repose & peace visible there [MTP].

William Winter also wrote on Oct. 28. Sam thanked him and observed:

My mother was very old — 87 — & has been threatened with death for some years, now, at times, with intervals of vigorous recuperation between; but her restorations to bodily health were not to her own profit, because they gave new lease to mental tortures — hallucinations which as often took the form of malignant persecutions & insult as any other. And so, for eight years she had as a rule a worn & hunted look [MTP].

Sam wrote to Lewis Morris Iddings, letter not extant but referred to in Iddings’ Nov. 16 [MTP].