December 15 Wednesday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Armory Hall, Pawtucket, R.I. [MTL 3: 415].
He wrote a short note from Boston to his mother and family about his lecturing, Livy’s trousseau, which Jervis Langdon called her “trowsers,” and his contracting a cold; he was feeling too low to answer Pamela’s letter [MTL 3: 425].
December 16 Thursday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) at Rumford Institute, Waltham, Mass. [MTL 3: 415]. See Oct. 8.
December 17 Friday – Sam wrote from Boston to his sister, Pamela Moffett. Sam was “killed up with a cold, & shall not lecture to-night—so there goes a few weeks board.” The canceled lecture was for Abington, Mass. Sam related that Livy’s “heart is thoroughly set upon” Pamela and Annie coming for the wedding.
December 18 and 19 Sunday – The lecture planned for Lynn, Mass. was also canceled due to Sam’s cold [MTL 3: 485n16]. Sam wrote from Boston to Livy about Joe Goodman coming to Elmira for the wedding and other matters. Sam went with Joseph R. Hawley to a dinner in honor of Francis W.
December 20 Monday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Canton, Mass. [MTL 3: 415].
December 21 Tuesday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Hudson, Mass. [MTL 3: 415].
Sam wrote from Boston to Livy.
December 22 Wednesday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Mercantile Library, Portland, Maine [MTL 3: 415].
Letters Sam wrote to Livy on Dec. 21 and 22 (letter numbers 161-2) are lost [MTL 3: 437-8n1].
December 23 Thursday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Town Hall, Rockport, Mass. [MTL 3: 415].
December 24 Friday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in New Hall, Slatersville, Rhode Island. Sam had been scheduled to lecture in Salem on this Christmas Eve, but changed to Slatersville to fill in for his sick friend, Josh Billings [MTL 3: 438n3].
December 25 Saturday – Christmas – Sam wrote from Boston to Livy wishing her a happy Christmas.
“I shall expect a letter in the loved & familiar hand in New Haven day after tomorrow, though—& a month after that, we shall close our long correspondence, & tell each other what our minds suggest, by word of mouth. Speed the day!” [MTL 3: 435].
December 27 Monday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Music Hall, New Haven, Conn. [MTL 3: 416].
Sam wrote from New Haven to Livy just before the lecture.
“I stopped two hours in Hartford today & Twichell & I bummed around together…Twelve thousand copies of the book sold this month. This is perfectly enormous. Nothing like it since Uncle Tom’s Cabin, I guess” [MTL 3: 440].
December 28 Tuesday – Sam wrote from New York to Joseph Twichell sending him a rail ticket he didn’t need. He also wrote to Elisha Bliss, about sending Dan Slote more books at a discount to sell to his friends.
In the evening, Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Taylor Hall, Trenton, New Jersey [MTL 3: 441-3].
December 29 Wednesday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Opera House, Newark, N.J. [MTL 3: 416].
“An Indignant Rebuke,” an unsigned article attributed to Sam, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 120].
The Boston Evening Transcript ran a letter by Sam about pretentious Americans, returning from Europe:
December 30 Thursday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Landmesser Hall, Wilkes-Barre, Pa. [MTL 3: 416].
“The Hyenas,” an unsigned article attributed to Sam, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 121].
December 31 Friday – Sam telegraphed Whitelaw Reid on or about this day. The dispatch is not extant but mentioned in Reid’s letter of Jan. 1, 1870.
Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Opera House, Williamsport, Pennsylvania [MTL 3: 416].
Sam Sues Webb – Finishes Lecture Tour – Sam & Livy Married “Sammy in Fairy Land” - Buffalo Express – Jervis Falls to Cancer – Galaxy Articles – Langdon Clemens Born - Emma Nye Dies at Clemens’ Home – Diamond Plans
1870 – Paine says that “as early as 1870 he [Sam] had jotted down an occasional reminiscent chapter” for what would become his autobiography [MTA 1: vi n1]. Of these, Paine includes “The Tennessee Land,” written this year [3-7].
January 1 Saturday – Sam wrote from Elmira to George L. Hutchings about Trenton’s True American printing a lengthy synopsis of Sam’s Dec. 28 lecture. Sam hated it when newspapers did that; he imagined that people would not go to his lectures if they could read them in the papers. He sent Hutchings his apology for being upset by being shown the synopsis [MTL 5: 685].
January 4 Tuesday – Sam and Livy traveled thirty miles east of Elmira where Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Wilson Hall, Owego, New York. They returned to Elmira that evening [MTL 4: 5n2].
January 5 Wednesday – Sam left at 8 PM and traveled overnight by train from Elmira to New York City [MTL 4: 2n1, 3].
January 5-6 Thursday – Clemens wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “Interviewing the Interviewer” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxiv].
January 6 Thursday – Sam wrote at 9 AM from Dan Slote’s in New York to Livy.
“The Amenia train has been changed to 3.30 instead of 4, PM., & so it is just right. I can arrive there at 7.21, whoop my lecture & clear out again.”
He’d been reading Robinson Crusoe and kept losing the book. “It is just like me. I must have a nurse” [MTL 4: 1].
January 7 Friday – In the wee hours after midnight, Sam wrote from Amenia, New York to Mary Mason Fairbanks.
January 8 Saturday – At midnight in the Troy House, Troy, New York, Sam wrote to Livy. He wrote her a second letter later in the day. His second letter marveled at the insignificance of the earth in the universe and of man. “Does one apple in a vast orchard think as much of itself as we do?” Sam was reading “The Early History of Man” in Eclectic Magazine for Jan. 1870 [MTL 4: 12].
Sam also wrote his agent, James Redpath, of “one-horse” towns, bills, and the like.
January 10 Monday – At noon, Sam wrote from Albany New York to Livy, apologizing for his Owego lecture she had attended. The reviews were good, however. “What an eternity a lecture-season is!” Sam wrote that he was reading Ivanhoe. “He is dead, now” [MTL 4: 15-16].
That evening he lectured (“Savages”) in Tweddle Hall, Albany. Afterward in bed he wrote again to Livy. “Had an immense house, tonight, little sweetheart, & turned away several hundred—no seats for them” [MTL 4: 17].
January 11 Tuesday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Union Place Hall, West Troy, New York.
Note: Sam’s next two letters to Livy, No.s 174-5, after West Troy and Rondout lectures are lost [MTL 4: 20n10].
January 12 Wednesday – Clemens lectured (“Savages”) in Rondout, New York.