January 4 Wednesday – Elisha Bliss wrote to Sam:

Have not heard from you for some time—am anxious for your safety—let us know how you are. &c—& how goes the latter. Have looked for advt. of your pamphlet also. Your brother & myself have expected to see it advertised. What is the trouble? Did you get my contracts sent? / Our paper gets on now just perfectly, & will be out by & by, in good shape I think [MTP].

January 4 and 5 Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss about the sketches book and the “Pre-deluge article,” which was a Noah’s Ark book that Sam never published [MTL 4: 296]. Sam wrote another letter on Jan. 5 to Bliss asking to:

“…make the theatre give my brother & his wife season-passes—you can puff & advertise in return. He’s an editor now & entitled to courtesies” [MTL 4: 297].

Possibly on this date Sam and Livy wrote to Mollie Clemens:

Both of you go slow—don’t hurry in the matter of making friends, & don’t get impatient. Making friends in Yankee land is a slow, slow business, but they are friends worth having when they are made. There is no section in America half so good to live in as splendid old New England—& there is no city on this continent so lovely & lovable as Boston, almost in sight of which is now your high privilege to live [MTL 4: 298].