January 12 Sunday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to William Dean Howells after receiving some poetry from Hydesaburo Ohashi, which he evidently enclosed here.
Say—Howells, don’t you want to discover a Japanese poet & introduce him to the public? It seems to me that his lines about the moon are poetry; also that the satire in the closing lines of the first paragraph exhibits a smart & calculated reserve not found every day in a beginner. …
"...the Clemens family loved the house at Riverdale (later known as "Wave Hill" and occupied by Arturo Toscanini and Sir Gladwyn Jebb, British ambassador to the United Nations). It was an enormous fieldstone, three-story mansion with impressive wooded grounds, just inside the New York City limits."
October – Sam inscribed a copy of Memoirs of Samuel Pepys for Susan Crane: “Stolen from / Mrs. Susan L. Crane / by/ her most loving & almost only brother-in-law / SL. Clemens / Riverdale, October, 1901” [MTP].
Sam also inscribed No. 15 of Chatto & Windus’ edition of his works to: John Y. MacAlister: “To J.Y.W. MacAlister with the very best regards of the Author. Riverdale, New York City. Oct. 1901” [MTP: American Art Assoc. catalogs, Jan. 4, 1928, Item 91].
October 1 Tuesday – The Clemenses took possession of the Appleton house at Riverdale-on-the-Hudson. Sam wrote sometime after to an unidentified man, heading the letter with this address [MTP].
Sometime between this day and Feb. 22, 1902 Sam also wrote to Frederick A. Duneka [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Charles H. Taylor of the Boston Globe, acknowledging the $100 check and thanking for Taylor’s compliment [MTP].
October 3 Thursday – At 8 a.m. Clemens, Joe Twichell, and possibly others met at the foot of West 35th Street, and boarded the Kanawha. H.H. Rogers may have already been on board. The yacht cruised off of Sandy Hook, N.J. to view the heat of the America’s Cup race, which had been thought to be the third in the best of five, but was the second. The heat this day began at 11 a.m. and finished at 3:16 p.m. [NY Times, Oct.
October 4 Friday – Sam and the passengers on the Kanawha watched as Columbia beat Shamrock II in the best of five races, winning heat No. 3 for a 3-0 victory and defense of the Cup. In each race:
Sept. 28, 1st race, 30 miles, Windward-Leeward Course: Columbia beat Shamrock II by 01 minute 20 sec in corrected time.
October 5 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Mr. Osborne (not further identified): “Indeed I should very much like to see that institution, but I have settled down, now, to stir from under the rooftree no more forever—at least for a year or two, I hope. / Won’t you send me another copy of the pamphlet? I hadn’t read three pages of it before some one carried it off. I was thoroughly interested” [MTP].
October 7 Monday – R.G. Newbegin wrote to Sam that Thomas Reed had called his attention to the fact that a letter had been sent in their company name “reported to have been signed by you.” Newbegin blamed W.I. Squire, another agent in Toledo, Ohio; he understood Sam’s indignation, was sorry that the matter occurred, and would do their best to see it didn’t happen again. He confided Reed’s assertion that the act was “forgery in the third degree” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env.
October 8 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Edmund Clarence Stedman in Bronxville, N.Y.
Mr. Dodge gave me the valued accommodation of a lift up the hill the other day, & although he wouldn’t come in at that time he promised that he & his family would come & see us later—we hope the contract will be made good. Yes, I am here for peace & repose…we are not of those who desire the peace & repose of the hermit or the convict.
October 9 Wednesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to George B. Harvey, president of Harpers and the North American Review: “If you are going to issue the North American several days before election day (Nov. 5) I’d like to have a few pages of space in it—otherwise, if it can’t be, I won’t waste my article but go to a political meeting & deliver it as a speech” [MTP].
October 10 Thursday – Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Sam: “I am in receipt of your letter, and will attend to its contents at once” [MTP].
October 10 or 17 Thursday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Theodore Weld Stanton.
October 11 Friday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Robert Underwood Johnson.
“I have been cogitating for 24 hours, & have evolved a scheme. It is quite different from yours, but I believe it promises well. Will you run up here (25 minutes by rail) some day between now & October 30…” [MTP].
The New York Times ran a report of burglaries in Riverdale, quoting Mark Twain:
BURGLARIES ALARM RIVERDALE RESIDENTS
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October 12 Saturday – Sam received a copy of George Washington Cable’s new book, The Cavalier (1901) [Oct. 15 to Cable].
Elisabeth Marbury wrote to Sam.
October 13 Sunday – In the evening Sam finished reading The Cavalier, George Washington Cable’s new book [Oct. 15 to Cable].
Sam inscribed a flyleaf of Russell Alexander Alger’s (1836-1907) The Spanish American War (1901): “S.L. Clemens, Riverdale-on-Hudson, Oct. 13, 1901” [Gribben 20].
October 14 Monday – William Dean Howells wrote to Sam [MTHL 2: 730]. Note: letter dated Oct. 15; postmarked Oct. 14; Howells was likely confused as to the date.
Michael P. O’Riley wrote from NY to Sam. He was a policeman and had read Sam’s interview in this day’s Herald. He wanted Sam to know that policemen were with Seth Low almost to the man, and wished Sam success in his canvass for votes for Low [MTP].
October 15 Tuesday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to George Washington Cable.
Your book came three days ago, your note [not extant] this morning. I finished reading the story night before last. From start to finish it kept me electrically a-tingle with its rush & go, & charmed with its brilliances of phrasing & its other manifold fascinations. Thank you cordially! [MTP]. Note: See Gribben 123. Cable’s book referred to was The Cavalier (1901)
October 16 Wednesday – William Dean Howells replied to Sam that he would “gladly come to your feast of acorns tomorrow evening,” but was concerned they might “poke” him out without an invitation. He also poked Sam about the upcoming Yale event publicity:
“In the notice of the Yale guests, as I noted with my usual grouch where you are concerned, your name came first, with some laudatory type round it, and mine followed with the “and others,” and nothing attached to it. So I think there is some mistake” [MTHL 2: 731].
October 17 Thursday – The New York Sun, Oct. 18, p.3, reported Sam’s anti-Tammany talk for policemen in front of his Riverdale house, followed by a trip downtown for his speech at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for the Order of Acorns, a group of independent voters organized to defeat Tammany candidates and elect Seth Low mayor. The New York Times Oct. 18, p.5 reported only on the hotel speech:
MARK TWAIN MAKES A SPEECH.
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October 18 Friday – William Dean Howells wrote to Sam about accommodations in the upcoming Yale Bi-Centennial Celebration:
October 19 Saturday – Sam’s notebook: “I go up Hudson by boat from Yonkers at 9.45” [NB 44 TS 15].
In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (1851-1926), youngest daughter of the famous author Nathaniel Hawthorne.
October 20 Sunday – In N.Y.C. Sam wrote on “Order of Acorns” letterhead to Joseph Johnson, Jr.
“Dear Mr. Johnson: / I forgot to say don’t do anything with the article without first giving me a chance to read the proof” [MTP].
October 21 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “Professor Farnam. / Yale Leave 4.pm. Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes’s Mother. [inserted above:] Sec’y of Yale / 88 Trumbull St.” [NB 44 TS 15]. Note: Henry W. Farnam (1853-1933), professor of economics at Yale.
Sam went to New Haven, Conn. to take part in the festivities for Yale University’s Bicentennial celebration. He would stay there until Oct. 24 and receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree; he already had an honorary MA degree from Yale (1888) [Oct. 22 to Livy; MTHL 2: 730n3].
October 22 Tuesday – In New Haven, Conn. sometime after noon, Sam wrote to Livy of missing events of the previous day:
October 23 Wednesday – The fourth and last day of Yale’s Bicentennial Celebration in New Haven, Conn. saw commemoration exercises and conferring of honorary degrees in the Hyperion Theater to more than sixty eminent men. The Doctors of Literature degrees numbered eight: Thomas Bailey Aldrich, George W. Cable, Mark Twain, Richard Watson Gilder, William Dean Howells, Thomas Nelson Page, Woodrow Wilson, and Brander Matthews.
October 24 Thursday – The Bicentennial Celebration over, Clemens said farewell to the Chapins and other friends and returned home to Riverdale, N.Y.
Sam’s notebook: “Dodge dinner 7.30. Henry Guy Carleton comes in afternoon” [NB 44 TS 15]. Note: Henry Guy Carleton( 1856-1910), playwright and journalist, but best remembered as a humorist, his last play Colinette (1899) starred Julia Marlowe.