December 19 Friday – Sam’s notebook:

Dec. 19/90 Take the 9th Ave. Elevated, every time. Passes within 1 block of both the Xstopher st & Desbrosses ferries. Take West shore car to 9th Ave. station. From hotel door to the ferry stations ½ hour is plenty of time. Came to N.Y. in early train with Beecher [3: 596]. Note: Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, pastor of the Elmira First Congregational, was in Hartford. It’s not known if the two had business together in N.Y. or merely shared the same car.

Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam: “Your favor received. We will order as set of Stanley. Have also sent a set of “L.A.L”, cloth, to Mr. Wales (Dr. Theron Augustus Wales?) A paragraph was given about having satisfied Watson Gill [MTP].

William Thomas Stead (1849-1912) for Review of Reviews, London, wrote to Sam, hoping that Sam didn’t think the “portrait in the Album which I send herewith is too atrocious a libel upon yourself.” If Sam had a better one he would get it. Stead announced that he was going to have his own office in N.Y. with Albert Shaw now editing the Minneapolis Tribune as his editor [MTP]. Note: Stead’s Portraits and Autographs (1890) is a book comprised of photographs, letters and an index of “readers and well wishers of the Review of Reviews,” with Sam’s “portrait” (about ten years old) and facsimile of his Mar. 17, 1890 letter to Stead on pages 62-3.