March 12 Monday – Hartford taxes on real estate, insurance stock, bank stock, money loaned at interest and merchandise were due by Nov. 1, with the assessed valuation made public the following March. Sam’s valuation was published on this day at $66,650 [MTPO notes with Oct.16, 1876 to Perkins].
March 13 Tuesday – Sam probably returned home to Hartford [MTLE 2: 36]. He purchased back 1876 issues of The American Architect and Building News, a Boston weekly published by Osgood & Co. The weekly began January 1, 1876. Sam was billed $6 [Gribben 22].
March 19 Monday – Susy Clemens’ fifth birthday.
The Boston Globe ran an interview on page 3 titled, “Mark Twain’s Tenets”—Sam’s remarks on politics and religion [Scharnhorst, Interviews 9-11].
Henry M. Alden (1836-1919) for Harper’s Magazine wrote “at the request of Mr. Moncure D. Conway” sending a check in U.S. currency the equivalent of £39..6s..6d sterling [MTP].
March 20 Tuesday – Sam purchased a copy of Fridthjof’s Saga, A Norse Romance by Esaias Tegnér from Osgood & Co. [Gribben 690]. See Nov. 13 entry for payment. Sam also purchased Bjorn Anderson’s translated Viking Tales of the North (1877) from Osgood [Gribben 24].
March 22 Thursday – Sam purchased a copy of William Morris’ (1834-1896) The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of Niblungs (1877), for a discount price of $2.40 from Osgood & Co. [Gribben 487].
March 23? Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, praising his effort on the play dialogue, and updating information on a lawsuit where the “villain got only $300 out of me instead of $10,000.” Sam wrote about beginning Orion’s biography the day before:
March 26 Monday – Sam read “Advantages of Travel” at the Monday Evening Club in Hartford, This was Sam’s fourth presentation to the Club [Monday Evening Club].
April – Sam inscribed a copy of George Ticknor’s (1791-1871) Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor (1876): “S.L. Clemens. / Hartford, / Conn. / April, 1877” [Gribben 704].
April 2 Monday – In Washington, D.C, Bret Harte wrote to Sam. Duckett calls the salutation “extremely formal.” Harte had received an offer from John Thomson Ford (1829-1894) who owned theatres in Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, about the play Ah Sin. Harte outlined the offer and asked Sam to telegram him his answer. He emphasized to Sam that the play was “ours” [Duckett 141-2]. Note: Sam accepted the offer.
April 6 Friday – Sam went to see the popular actor Edwin Booth in a play and called upon him backstage. Evidently, Booth did not appreciate such spontaneous unannounced contacts, as evidenced by Sam’s apology note on Apr. 7 [MTLE 2: 38].
April 7 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to the actor Edwin Booth, for whom Sam had originally written Gilded Age play. Sam apologized for calling backstage uninvited to pay his respects the night before [MTLE 2: 38]. Note: Booth was the brother of the man who killed Abraham Lincoln.
April 8 Sunday – Sam inscribed a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to Edwina Booth (1861-1938), daughter of the popular actor, Edwin Booth [MTLE 2: 39].
April 10 Tuesday – H.W. Bergen wrote from Buffalo having rec’d Sam’s of Apr. 5. He thought Sam’s idea of using a hack a good one. “I telegraphed you last evening with ref. to the check so that I may receive it while here” [MTP]. Note: Bergen was Sam’s road agent, reporting on play performances in various cities.
April 13 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Miss Holmes, who evidently requested Sam send her an autograph and a drawing. Sam claimed “figure-drawing as my specialty,” but admitted that some thought he was good at landscapes and still life, though the persons who thought so couldn’t tell the difference. Sam sent her a picture of the President and a caption [MTLE 2: 40].
April 14 Saturday – Sam wrote a letter of condolence to Nancy Fish Barnum (Mrs. P.T. Barnum) on the loss of her youngest daughter, Pauline Barnum Seeley:
April 17 Tuesday – Sam wrote a postcard from Hartford to the American Publishing Co., requesting that a copy of Tom Sawyer and Sketches be sent to Absalom C. Grimes [MTLE 2: 43]. Grimes and Sam were both steamboat pilots and members of the Marion Rangers, along with Ed Stevens, Sam Bowen and nine or ten other Hannibal youths.
April 19 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, who had sent Sam a letter to present to President Hayes when Sam went to Washington. This letter may have been part of the effort to secure a consulship for Charles Warren Stoddard that the two men had discussed [MTLE 2: 44].
April 23 Monday – Sam wrote a card from Hartford to Susan Crane, asking if she would stay in Hartford with Livy while he went May 10 “off on a sea voyage, to be gone till toward the end of that month” [MTLE 2: 45].
Sam then left for New York. He arrived at 6 PM and stayed at the St. James Hotel. Dating a note “Early Bedtime” he wrote to Livy:
April 24 Tuesday – Sam left New York and arrived in Baltimore [MTLE 2: 47].
April 25? Wednesday – This is the date Sam wrote in his Apr. 17 letter to Mary Fairbanks that he would be in Washington to oversee rehearsals for Ah Sin. He had hoped to take Livy and “remain in Washington & Baltimore till the middle of May…” but Sam went alone [MTLE 2: 41].
April 26 Thursday – Sam wrote a very long and extraordinary letter (32 pages MS.) from Guy’s Hotel in Baltimore to Livy, describing his visit to the automated and palatial estate (“Alexandroffsky”) of Thomas DeKay Winans (1820-1878), an important and wealthy railroad pioneer who had made his money building a railroad with his brother William, and Major George Washington Whistler for Czar Nich
April 27 Friday – Sam had just received another letter from Livy and responded again from Baltimore.
“Livy My Darling, I had a jolly adventure last night with a chap from the ‘Eastern Shore’—you must remind me to tell you about it when I get home. I spent 4 hours in the State Prison to-day, after rehearsal, but it would take a book to hold all I saw & heard” [MTLE 2: 58].
May 1 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Baltimore to Howells.
May 2 Wednesday – Based on his May 1 note to Howells, Sam arrived back in Hartford. Donald Hoffman, however, puts May 1 as the day Sam arrived home, with a cold and bronchitis [25].
Orion Clemens wrote from Keokuk, Ia.
My Dear Brother:— / I enclose a picture of the leech that draws the blood that Col. Sellers makes.
May 3 Thursday – The New York Daily Graphic ran “Mark Twain and His Chairman,” by “Gath,” (George Alfred Townsend) Sam’s comments on the actor Charles Parsloe [Scharnhorst, Interviews 13-14].