August 2 Friday – At 3 p.m. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote from Rogers’ office to Livy in Lake Saranac, N.Y.
Livy darling, please send a check on the Guaranty Trust Co to Miss K.I. Harrison for twenty thousand dollars payable to her order. She is going to put it in Union Pacific preferred. Date the check Aug. 3—or Aug. 5—& rush it straight along! She will buy on Monday. The Chicago & Alton paid a dividend of $200 July 2d—it is in Mr. Rogers’s hands. The U.S. Steel pf. Will pay one of the $175 four days hence. Those coupons are on the International Navigation & were due yesterday—$1,000. I’m going aboard now, & sleep.
Goodbye, dearheart.
After his signature, and likely after his nap, he added information about where he had called earlier in the day. He saw William W. Appleton, who would send Livy a diagram of the house; Sam asked him to put in the sizes of the rooms. He advised her there were fourteen bedrooms. He also had a “pleasant talk” with Frank Bliss who must have been in the City. Also, Sam looked in at their house on 10th, which they still had the lease on. “Everything nice, there, & Satin looking very handsome. Plays with the dog.” He had a late luncheon with “young Rockefeller” at the Standard Oil offices: “it is the best homemade table in the North.” He advised her that he was not going to buy a suit of clothes until he discussed it with H.H. Rogers and William Evarts Benjamin, because he hadn’t “seen a single flannel suit—everybody wears gray & gray only—& black” [MTP]. Note: “young Rockefeller”: John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. (1874-1960), only son of Standard Oil founder and “world’s richest man,” John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. (1839-1937).
At 6 p.m., the Kanawha steamed down to anchor off Sandy Hook, N.J . [Aug. 3 to Livy]. Dr. Clarence C. Rice was also on board [Aug. 6 to Livy]. The passengers included: The Coes, the Benjamins, the Harry Rogerses, Col. Augustus G. Paine (1839-1915), N.Y. businessman; Dr. Clarence C. Rice, H.H. Rogers, and of course Mark Twain. Augustus Paine’s obituary states he was the executor in the estate, and the great friend of Thomas B. Reed, who would join the cruise later.
John Y. MacAlister wrote to Sam. After a whimsical opening paragraph claiming all of his mental telegraph “letters” had “gone astray” and he was “reduced to fall back on this gross and hampering means of communication,” MacAlister wrote that things were going well with Plasmon sales there. He declined to come to America just then, but Poultney Bigelow had asked to accompany him in the winter. He offered personal matters about his family and asked about the Clemenses. He was also on to another investment, “our new tube railway schemes,” and “if you could persuade your friend, Rogers, to come in and take hold he can make a big fortune for you and me…” [MTP]. Note: the London Underground.