July 6 Saturday – Sam, Livy, and baby Susy with nursemaid Nellie left Orion and Mollie in charge of the Forest Street house and left to Fenwick Hall Hotel at Saybrook Point, Saybrook, Conn. It was a two-hour train ride from Hartford. Fenwick Hall was completed in 1871 and offered a variety of entertainment, including billiards and bowling. Sam imitated Charles Dickens characters at the nightly hotel socials [Powers, MT A Life 321]. Livy loved the place except for “too many Hartford people.”

Sam may have begun The Adventures of Tom Sawyer while at Saybrook [MTL 5: 112-14].

Sam also wrote to Joseph L. Blamire of Routledge & Sons on the matter of Innocents Abroad being published in England [MTL 5: 116n1].

Bret Harte wrote.

My dear Clemens, / I don’t know what to say about going to Saybrook. The baby has been dangerously sick, and we shall not be able to leave here until she is better…until Mrs Harte finds the wet-nurse, who, the Dr. says is essential…I have spent much of my holiday season running to the Doctor’s…(distant about 3 miles) and going to the city wet-nurse hunting… [MTP].