September 15 Sunday – Sam inscribed in the front free endpaper of Great Religions of the World, by Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935), et al (1901): “S.L. Clemens / Ampersand / Saranac Lake, N.Y. / Sept. 15, 1901.” Sam annotated the book liberally [Gribben 274]. Note: See The Twainian 38 (Jan-Feb 1979), 1-4; Mar-Apr 1979, 1-3.

Samuel E. Moffett wrote to Sam

Dear Uncle. / I am glad my Nineteenth Century article has pleased you. It seems to have been well regarded in this country, but not in England. I get frequent letters of remonstrance from Englishmen, some abusive and others argumentative.

I have just come back from Tennessee. It looks as if all we had left there were half the mineral rights on about 1500 acres of land but even that ought to be valuable. I have brought some pretty samples of coal from one of those tracts, which I should like to show to you and the Langdons.

Moffett said he thought the 100,000 acres the family used to own would now be worth about a million dollars. He also wrote of no one knowing where he’d gone, and when President McKinley was shot he was in Staunton, Va. and thought it strange that no flags were flying, much less any at half- mast, but when he returned to New York there was a flag on every house and building. He told of William Randolph Hearst telegraphing everywhere trying to locate him, and he admitted he’d chosen a bad time to be away [MTP].