January 9 Thursday – At 21 Fifth Ave, N.Y. Sam wrote to Dorothy Quick in Plainfield, N.J.
(Only the envelope survives) [MTP].
Sam also wrote to the Knickerbocker Trust Co. Depositors’ Committee:
Jan. 9, 1908
To the Committee:
Gentlemen: I am in receipt of the plan for the resumption of the business of the Knickerbocker Trust Company, and I willingly yield my assent. My interest in the matter is strong, since I measure it by my deposit, $51,199, which is a large one for me.
I believe in your plan. In my judgment it will succeed, and I hope the other depositors will view it in the same way and will give in their adhesion to it. Very truly yours, / S.L. CLEMENS. [New York Times, Jan. 10, 1908, p. 1, “MARK TWAIN ON BANK PLAN.” The article identified the Committee as the “Satterlee-Parsons committee of depositors.” Also seen as “Satterly.”
Though no extant letter deals with Jean’s desire to move from Katonah to Greenwich, Conn. Hill uses Lyon’s datebook and claims Jean was “adamant she must be allowed to leave Katonah.”:
On January 9, 1908, she and two sisters, Edith and Mildred Cowles, who were to serve as nurses, moved into a house at 57 Maple Avenue, Greenwich, Connecticut. They were accompanied by Jean’s young friend Marguerite Schmidt [or Schmitt], who may also have been a patient at Katonah. Miss Lyon and Clemens went to meet the quartet at the New York City station en route to the new cottage. “Poor Jean looks very very ill,” Miss Lyon recorded. “She is so white and her once beautiful face is so drawn; her fingers have a curious movement. She is like a drooping lily” [196]. Note: In a letter on Feb. 11 to Charles Langdon, Sam reported Jean was happier at Greenwich, but by Mar. 23 she was dissatisfied there, and Sam wrote Jean that day that he hoped she would find another place close to NY and near Dr. Frederick Peterson, who recommended to Lyon that the four girls might find Gloucester, Mass. More attractive [197].
Isabel Lyon’s journal: It is dreadful to have such a dearth of amusement for the King. Today —this evening at dinner he said “My life is so empty, it seems a pity that I cannot have a game of billiards when I want it—” Mr. Littleton [neighbor] is submerged in the Thaw trial & has to work every evening; and ABP’s is submerged in his work & has to stay up in the country, for he cannot compose anything in town. We went up to the station to meet Jean who left Katonah today for Greenwich where she is to stay with the Cowles girls. 4 of them have taken a house together. Poor Jean looks very ill. She is so white & her once beautiful face is so drawn & her fingers have a curious movement, & she is like a drooping lily. The King walked down 5th Ave with Tesla, who he said once gave promise of being a mighty man. He had a wireless telegraph method all ready for demonstration years ago but a disastrous fire destroyed all the devices & years of research notes & all formulas & he has never rallied his forces [MTP: IVL TS 5-6].
Chatto & Windus wrote from London to send a statement and check £284 8/8, for the last six months ending Dec. 31. They hoped they would see him in England during the spring or summer [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Yes, thank him & say I’m grown too old to travel but I’m hoping to see them on this side”
D.B. John Roosa wrote to confirm Sam’s acceptance to be at the New York Post-Graduate Medical School dinner at Delmonico’s on Apr. 16 [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote on the letter, “Answd. Jan. 10, ‘08”