December 18 and 19 Sunday – The lecture planned for Lynn, Mass. was also canceled due to Sam’s cold [MTL 3: 485n16]. Sam wrote from Boston to Livy about Joe Goodman coming to Elmira for the wedding and other matters. Sam went with Joseph R. Hawley to a dinner in honor of Francis W. Bird (1809-1894). Sam then went to bed at 8 PM on Dec. 18 but was visited by Joseph R. Hawley and then Lyman Beecher and so was up till 1 AM [431].

On Dec. 18, “Around the World Letter No. 5” was printed in the Buffalo Express, and included “’Pocket’” Mining, and “Baker’s Cat,” about a feline who loved to pocket mine, later known as “Dick Baker and His Cat” or “Remarkable Sagacity of a Cat” in the Californian, 1865 [McCullough 114].