From page 168 The Life of Mark Twain - The Middle Years 1871-1891:
July 31 Saturday – The Clemens family left Hartford to vacation at Bateman’s Point near Newport, Rhode Island. They stayed at Ridge Road and Castle Hill Avenue in an old farm on the well-used resort. Dan De Quille, who had been staying in the Union Hall Hotel in Hartford and writing his book with Sam’s help, also accompanied the family and stayed a week.
August – The last of seven installments of “Old Times on the Mississippi” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly.
Sam inscribed a copy of Augustus John Hare’s Walks in Rome (1874): Saml. L. Clemens, Bateman’s Point, Newport, R.I, Aug., 1875. [Gribben 293].
August 2 Monday – Sam’s letter of July 29? to Redpath found its way into the Boston Herald, appearing on Monday, Aug. 2 [MTL 6: 530].
August 3 Tuesday – Sam’s short piece “Mark Twain to Stay at Home” ran in the Hartford Courant [Courant.com].
Clara L. Kellogg (1842-1916) wrote from Clarehurst, Hudson River. “I am truly obliged to you, Mr. Clemens, for giving me the desired information. / Through your kindness I am now in possession of two photographs of your charming house” [MTP].
August 9 Monday – Dan De Quille wrote to the Enterprise that Bateman’s point had water on three sides and was foggy and breezy. Sam “is very indolent and after reading about a thousand pages [MS pages] said it was all right—he did not want to read any more” [MTL 6: 521]. Dan left sometime between this day and Aug. 12; he took a steamboat trip to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket [531n1].
August 12 Thursday – Sam and Livy attended a lecture on natural history given by Alexander Agassiz. They’d been invited by pastor and writer Thomas Wentworth Higginson [MTL 6: 522].
Thomas W. Higginson wrote to invite Sam and Livy to the Town and Country function on Saturday [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Col. Higginson”
August, mid – Sam gave a picnic speech at Castle Hill Town and Country Club, Newport, R.I. [Roche 23-27].
August 16 Monday – In Shirley Village, Mass., William Dean Howells sent Sam proofs on “The Curious Republic of Gondour,” which would run anonymously in the Oct. Atlantic Monthly [MTL 6: 523]. “I like Gondour greatly, and wish we could keep your name,” Howells wrote, “Send me some more accounts of the same country” [MTHL 1: 97].
August 18 Wednesday – David Gray wrote from Buffalo to call Sam “a perfect unadulterated saint,” referring to his recent letters as “long, kind & welcome.” He found Twain’s Mississippi Sketches “delicious.” A long and friendly letter [MTP].
August 20 Friday – Julia Ward Howe invited Sam and Livy to a “Blue Tea,” where guests brought a few lines of verse or a paragraph of prose [MTL 6: 522].
August 23 Monday – Sam gave a reading from his sketches at the Bellevue Dramatic Club, Opera House, Newport. He was a great hit. Sam read: “How I Edited an Agriculture Paper” and from Roughing It. The reading was written up in the Providence Journal on Aug.
August 24 Tuesday – Thomas W. Higginson wrote inviting the Clemenses to a reading he was giving from his old journals “describing Newport society during the Revolution, especially while the French officers” were there [MTL 6: 522].
During their Newport stay Sam and Higginson used an old bowling alley. In 1907 Sam recalled the fun:
August 26 Thursday – H.W. Bergen showed Sam’s telegraph request to John T. Raymond, who was angry about Sam requesting copies of the contracts made for staffing and theater rental, angry enough to fire off a caustic paragraph to Sam, who was questioning the high expenses [MTL 6: 528]. Sam was still making money off the play, and probably didn’t want to kill the goose, even to the extent of Raymond making off with more than half the profits. Raymond’s note:
August 27 Friday – Sam wrote from Newport, R.I. to Elisha Bliss, asking for an “official statement of the royalties you have paid me upon Canadian sales of my 3 books.” The only book Bliss was authorized to sell in Canada was Innocents Abroad, and his books did not distinguish those from books sold in the U.S. For the others, only Routledge had Imperial copyright, a fact Sam should have known.
August 31 Tuesday – In Newport, R.I. Sam sent a postcard to Dan De Quille, who was back at the Union Hall Hotel in Hartford working on his book. The Clemens family would be back home “about 7th or 8th” Sam wrote [MTL 6: 530].
September 1 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Newport to Richard M. Milnes (Lord Houghton), who Sam had met in England in June 1873. Houghton was at Niagara Falls on a four-month tour of Canada, and the Eastern and Midwestern U.S. with his son. Sam hoped Houghton would be able to visit him at Hartford after Sept. 8 [MTL 6: 531].
September 8 Wednesday – The Clemens family returned home to Hartford, as reported by the Hartford Courant the next day [MTL 6: 532n2].