November 10 Friday – N.I. Brockett wrote from Hartford about shirts and underwear ordered from O.B. Bassetts, who was dead. The purpose of the letter is unclear [MTP].
Mary Keily wrote from Lancaster, Penn., another “lunatic” letter [MTP].
George P. Lathrop wrote from Concord, Mass. asking if Sam might telegraph him about being in Hartford next week, since his plan was to come there as a “spy in the service of the Harpers” [MTP].
November 11 Saturday –Sam typed a note from Hartford to George W. Cable, thanking him for the books that came. Sam was “infinitely obliged” [MTP].
“Please send me a New Orleans directory of this or last year. I do not know the price but inclose five dollars at random” [Gribben 652].
Sam also wrote to Charles Webster:
November 12 Sunday – Edward M. Bunce for Phoenix National Bank wrote advising a credit from Chatto for $1,442.87 had been made [MTP].
Mary Keily wrote another “lunatic” letter from Penn. [MTP].
November 13 Monday – H.O. Johnson wrote to Sam on Sam’s typed note of Oct. 27: “Candidly it was the autograph of ‘Mark Twain’ that I wanted and I was as disappointed as the man who after a night raid with the ‘boys’ found he had been stealing his own pork” [MTP].
November 14 Tuesday – William White for District Conn., Archer Co., Texas wrote to Sam that the 320 acres in Archer Co. had been sold for taxes the past year but he could redeem it by paying double what it sold for plus this year’s taxes, or a total of $17.06 [MTP].
November 15 Wednesday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam, Bullock to Orion Nov. 13 enclosed. He apologized for sending so much information about electric lights, but Orion thought it might strike as an investment [MTP].
November 16 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Judge Horace Russell about his trouble in hitting upon a subject for a toast for the Dec. 21 dinner [MTP].
November 17 Friday – Sam and Livy joined Joe and Harmony Twichell and Harriet Beecher Stowe at a dinner in honor of George P. Lathrop, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s son-in-law. From Twichell’s journals:
“…pleasure of hearing Mrs. Stowe talk. She was in the mood for it, and struck a reminiscent strain having much to say of the old anti-slavery days. We were conscious of a great reverence toward her” [Andrews 87].
November 18 Saturday – Sam typed a response from Hartford to Orion, offering a familiar condescending tone about Orion’s latest idea for speculation, a local electric company. Sam was also “full of devilish irritation besides, on account of ….inability to work steadily” and to his satisfaction on LM [MTP].
Sam also inscribed The Stolen White Elephant to Harriet E. Whitmore:
November 21 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster about cleaning up loose ends with Sam’s ex-lawyer, Charles Perkins.
“About Christmas you may go to Mr. Perkins & get all documents & everything connected with my business—so that Mr. Perkins’s salary can stop with the year.
November 22 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster asking him to come up from New York City “on a matter of business here upon which” he wanted Webster’s advice [MTP].
November 23 Thursday – Pamela Moffett wrote in a tiny hand on a tiny card from Oakland, Calif. where she had gone for her health and to see her son Samuel. She thanked Clemens for sending a signed book to the Schroeters, and talked about her son’s progress in farming there [MTP]. Note: also seen as “Schroter”.
November 24 Friday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam, all about the company he wanted to start dealing with electric lights [MTP].
November 25 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster. After referring angrily to and enclosing another bill from the plumber Ahern, Sam wrote about a land matter in Archer County, Texas. It seems Livy had loaned money to a woman, and the woman’s husband had let the taxes fall delinquent.
November 27 Monday – Livy’s 37th birthday.
Hjalmar Boyesen wrote a card from NYC, asking if he’d sign his name on two copies of P&P, which he was sending in a day or two [MTP].
Mary Keily wrote another “lunatic” letter from Lancaster Insane Asylum, Penn. [MTP].
November 28 Tuesday – Edward W. Bok, the pesky teen who kept writing Sam, sent birthday congratulations with a reminder of his of Oct. 13 request for “a few words of opinion on my collection [autograph] to be gathered from the” newspaper clippings he’d sent [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “D—d fool”
November 30 Thursday – Sam’s 47th birthday. Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Charles Webster: “Dear Charley—There’s no sort of hurry. Yrs. S L C The watch came” [MTBus 205].
Joe Twichell wrote to invite Sam to join him and “six or eight young apprentices and mechanics to dine and spend the evening with us Saturday” [MTP].
December – Harper’s Monthly Christmas Supplement, a 32-page large-folio, edited by members of the Tile Club, ran Sam’s “The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm” [MTHL 1: 406n2; Budd, “Collected” 1020].
December 2 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his sister, Pamela Moffett, who was in California visiting her son, Samuel Moffett.
December 5 Tuesday – Filed with the US Patent Office: patent # 547,859: to James W. Paige: Machine for Setting, Distributing and Justifying Type [MTHHR 64n1].
December 6 Wednesday – Center & Co., Private Detective Bureau, NYC wrote a postcard to Sam: “Wee [sic] have a letter of all Pawn and loan offices in City, as your watch is probably in those places. Wee will make an investigation of those places on receipt of $5.00 for expenses…send full description of watch” [MTP].
December 9 Saturday – Karl & Hattie J. Gerhardt wrote twice to Sam and Livy, in the first enclosing “a clearance paper from our consul here for a box (contents marked on invoice). It will go on the ‘Labrador’ … which sails from Ham on the 16th of December.” The baby bust was inside. The second one page letter was simply Merry Christmas wishes [MTP].
December 11 Monday – Stewart L. Woodford (chairman of the dinner committee) wrote from NYC on US attorney’s Office notepaper asking what train they might expect him, and offered to secure a hotel for him [MTP].
December 12 Tuesday – Sam replied from Hartford to the Dec. 11 of Julian Hawthorne Sam explained that the way the Canadian laws read, it was impossible for a foreigner to secure a copyright there without making false claims. He mentions that “it is said—Beecher, Jeff Davis, et al” had done it.
“The Canadian law was made, distinctly & professedly, to encourage piracy…” [MTP].
December 14 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Stewart L. Woodford (1835-1913), attorney and ex-congressman from New York. Sam informed him that the Brunswick was his hotel and that he purposed to arrive there the evening of Dec. 21 for the Dec. 22 ceremonies; he thanked him for the reminder, but Judge Russell had written him the information [MTP].