April 1 Monday – Mary Mason Fairbanks wrote from Cleveland about her visit to Elmira, the babies, her desire for Sam to visit for his health [MTL 5: 74-5].

In New York, Bret Harte wrote congratulating Sam on Susy’s birth:

I am glad it’s a girl. If she behaves herself she shall marry my Franky, provided her father does the right thing in the way of dowry and relinquishes humor as a profession. My Franky has early exhibited those talents calculated to render a woman happy, and as a circus rider, car conductor, Negro minstrel or butcher’s boy would attain professional eminence [Duckett 76].