Twain often visited Boston.  The Lyceum lecture bureau of James Redpath; his publisher James R, Osgood; and his friend W.D. Howells, his friend and editor of the Atlantic Monthly were all there.  Rasmussen remarks that Twain selected Hartford, Connecticut in 1871 for a home because it was midway between New York and Boston, with easy train connections to both. "Over the next 35 years he spoke frequently in Boston and met most of New England's leading literary figures there."

This place was called "Wantastiquet"[10] by the Abenaki people, which meant "lost river", "river that leads to the west", or "river of the lonely way".

In the early 1700s, the land now occupied by the city of Allentown and Lehigh County was a wilderness of scrub oak where neighboring tribes of Native Americans fished for trout and hunted for deer, grouse, and other game.

To Olivia L. Clemens
15 October 1871 • Bethlehem, Pa.
Bethlehem, Sunday

Livy darling, I got here at 4 oclock yesterday afternoon. It is now nearly noon, & still I don’t feel moved to begin studying my lecture1—so the wisdom of coming here so soon, is apparent. It is better that this feeling should be on me today than tomorrow. By tomorrow I shall be rested up & brisk.