September 17 Sunday – At Frank Fuller’s farm In Madison, N.J. Sam wrote to daughter Clara. He wrote that he’d “woke up at 7 this morning entirely rested, refreshed & brisk.”

It’s a charming great place — wide levels of grass & groves of trees, & plenty of ponies & dogs & cows & carriages, side-saddles so on. Also a bowling alley & a beautiful little theatre….They want you to come & stay a week or so, & I tell them we’ll see, by & by. Good bye, dear. / Papa / I return to N.Y tomorrow [MTP].

Note: Sam undoubtedly made use of the bowling alley, though he made no mention of any games or scores with Fuller. Back in 1875 Sam and Thomas W. Higginson used an old, warped bowling alley while vacationing in Newport, R.I. See Aug. 24, 1875 entry.

Sam also wrote at 7 a.m. to Livy, relating the “billows of hell” that had been rolling over him and the hectic week trying to raise money in Hartford, “without shame” from Sue Crane, and finally in New York, with Rogers making the eleventh-hour rescue. The trial had clarified things for him, as trials often do, at least for his intentions:

When I pack my satchel to leave New York — it may be weeks & it may be months yet, dearest! — my share of Webster & Co will belong to somebody else. I am going to get out of that. I mean to stick to the neighborhood of New York till it is accomplished. If I hadn’t come the concern would have gone under — I do not want to be so necessary to any business again.

Sam wrote that the Fullers “look as they always did….as cordial & breezy as ever, & have no gray hairs.” Sam called their house “in barbarous taste.” He listed everything on their supper table and declared it all from the farm except the sugar and salt. Sam planned to return to Dr. Rice’s in the morning [LLMT 270-1]. Note: Fuller was an old western friend, once acting governor of Utah for a day, a title Sam often used for him.

At Fuller’s Sam met Russell Hinman (1853-1912), who he called “the great authority on physical geography.” In the evening Sam ate radishes and ice cream, and understandably slept “not a wink” [Sept. 19 to Livy].