November 26 Tuesday – Sam took C.F. Wood and servant to the train. Wood crossed the continent by the Great Pacific Railway and sailed from San Francisco for New Zealand, stopping at the Sandwich Islands [MTL 5: 231n2].

Mollie Clemens and Sam wrote from Hartford to their mother, Jane Lampton Clemens and Pamela Moffett.

“Dear Mother & Sister—Very glad to get home—& shall be glad to return to England in May. In London I bought a steam engine for Sammy’s Christmas present….Sammy must learn how to run it before he blows himself up with it” [MTL 5: 230].

The Boston Daily Advertiser ran Sam’s account of the Batavia heroism, “A Daring Deed” dated Nov. 20 to the Royal Humane Society [Camfield, bibliog.].

A scandal brought by accusations of adultery fell upon Henry Ward Beecher and family. Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927), a close ally of the arrogant Isabella Beecher Hooker, had accused Beecher of the act with Elizabeth Richards Tilton (1834-1897), one of his parishioners. Woodhull, an outspoken advocate of free-love, accused Beecher of hypocrisy, of speaking against free-love in public but practicing it in private. It was a juicy New England scandal.

Mollie wrote: “Sam says Livy shall not cross Mrs Hookers threshold and if he talks to Mrs H he will tell her in plain words the reason” [MTL 5: 230].