Hartford House: Day By Day

September 26 Saturday – John E. Owens wrote from Boston to ask for production rights to a play in New Orleans for GA [MTP].

September 26 Sunday – Sam saw the first copy of Sketches, New and Old [MTL 6: 541].

September 27 Monday – Phineas T. Barnum wrote, repeating his aim to bring his daughters to meet them for only 10 minutes on the 29th [MTP].

Jesse Madison Leathers (1846-1887), third cousin of Sam’s, wrote from Louisville, Ky.

September 27 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to John and Alice Hooker Day that he and Livy would be happy to see them on “Friday evening from 7 till 11” [MTLE 1: 119]. Note: Sam & Livy had attended the 1869 Hooker-Day wedding in New York. This note from MTPO:

September 27 Thursday – O.W. Bromwell wrote from Jacksonville, Tenn. to Sam, clippings enclosed. “Thinking that perhaps the fate of the ‘Ocean Tramp’ described in your letter to the Hartford Courant Sept. 19 would be of some interest to you, I take the liberty to send you the enclosed clippings” [MTP]. Note: clippings about the schooner Jonas Smith, from NY Herald Sept. 20, “Mark Twain Solves the Mystery of the Bark Jonas Smith”

September 28 Monday – President Grant attended a performance of the Gilded Age play at the Park Theatre in New York.

September 28 Sunday – Charles L. Webster married Annie Moffett in Fredonia by Rev. A.L. Benton.

September 29 Tuesday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to Frank Fuller, who evidently had written trying to engage Sam in a stage production. Sam replied:

My Dear Frank:

Many thanks for your letter & enclosures. If I had the time I would hurl myself in the drama, wholesale. But I must go on with my book. I do not know whether I could fit Mr. & Mrs. Barney Williams with characters or not, but I still think I could fit Bijou—though I must not be thinking about dramas, with this big book on my shoulders.

September 29 Wednesday – The Hartford Courant published a letter from Sam wrote (probably on Sept.

September 29 Friday – In the evening, Sam and Livy entertained Hartford friends in their “big, long talked of party,” that “went off well.” (See Sept. 27 entry.)

Peter Henderson, Seedsman and Florist, New York City receipted $2.50 [MTP].

September 3 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Mary Mason Fairbanks. Sam encouraged Mary to visit, and wrote about his desire to travel to Germany next May 1,  “& settled down in some good old city…& never stir again for 6 months. Then come home.” Sam’s mother was visiting Quarry Farm, and the Clemens family would go home to Hartford the next day [MTLE 2: 148].

September 30 Wednesday – William Dean Howells wrote from Cambridge, Mass. Sam asking for “some such as that colored” story “for our Jan’y number.” He congratulated Sam on President Grant’s enjoyment of the Col. Sellers character in the Gilded Age play; and said they’d enjoyed Charles & Susan Warner’s visit before they left for Europe [MTHL 1: 32].

September 30 Saturday – Following a noisy torchlight parade with a band and Civil War veteran marchers, Sam gave his first political speech. He spoke for Rutherford B. Hayes at Allyn Hall in Hartford. Though the city was Republican, there was some mud-slinging by supporters of Tilden.

September 30 Sunday – Sol Smith Russell wrote to Sam: “Yours to Norfolk Va – was sent to me. Thank you kindly for your letter as I had about despaired of hearing from you—Depend on it I shall run up and see you as soon as possible” [MTP].

September 4 Monday – Helen M. Chapin wrote to Sam: “You have made me very happy by enjoying my small joke” [MTP]. Note: see Aug 10, 28 from Helen.

September 4 Tuesday – If the intentions in the two letters of Sept. 3 to Mary Fairbanks and the Howlands were carried out, the Clemens family left Elmira and returned to their home in Hartford.

September 5 Tuesday – The Clemens family left Quarry Farm for Hartford by way of New York City [The Twainian, Nov-Dec. 1956 p.3, June 2, 1911 letter from Susan Crane to Paine].

September 6 Wednesday – The Clemenses registered at the St. James Hotel in New York, where they spent the next few days, arriving back in Hartford on Sept. 11 [MTPO Notes with Sept. 1 to Moffett from the N.Y. Herald and the N.Y. Tribune].

NYC temperatures ranged from 73-52 degrees F. with no rain [NOAA.gov].

September 7-11 Monday – In either New York or Hartford sometime during this period, Sam wrote a short note to Bret Harte, after taking in Harte’s play, Two Men of Sandy Bar at the Union Square Theatre in New York. Harte had sold the play to actor Stuart Robson for $3,000 plus $50 for each performance during its first season, a price Harte came to regret [MTPO].

September 8 Wednesday – The Clemens family returned home to Hartford, as reported by the Hartford Courant the next day [MTL 6: 532n2].

September 8 Friday – The Clemenses were still in New York.

September 9 Saturday – NYC temperatures ranged from 72-61 degrees F. with no rain [NOAA.gov].