December 9 Wednesday – In Hartford, using a typewriter he’d purchased in Boston with the help of Petroleum Nasby (David Locke), Sam typed from Hartford to Orion. The typewriter cost Sam $125 and could only print upper case letters. The typewriter reminded Sam of Robert Buchanan of the Hannibal Journal, where Buchanan used to “set up articles at the case without previously putting them in the form of manuscript.” Sam admired such “marvelous intellectual capacity.” In 1907 Sam recalled his purchase and use of the typewriter, mistakenly remembering that it was in 1871 and that The Adventures of Tom Sawyer must have been the first book he used it for. But it was purchased in 1874, either Nov. 14 or 16, during his Boston visit with Twichell and Life on the Mississippi in 1882 was the first novel a typewriter was used on, though a different machine than this [MTL 6: 309].

Sam also typed a letter to William Dean Howells:

YOU NEEDNT ANSWER THIS; I AM ONLY PRACTICIING TO GET THREE | ANOTHER SLIP-UP THERE.| ONLY PRACTICING TO GET THE HANG OF THE THING. I NOTICE I MISS FIRE & GET IN A GOOD MANY UNNECESSARY LETTERS & PUNCTUATION MARKS. I AM SIMPLY USING YOU FOR A TARGET TO BANG AT. BLAME ME MY CATS BUT THIS THING REQUIRES GENIUS IN ORDER TO WORK IT JUST RIGHT [MTL 6: 311].

Howells responded that when Sam got tired of the machine, to loan it to him.

The Fredonia Censor ran an article about Sam donating sixteen volumes for the WCTU reading room in that city. Among these was Abby Richardson’s Pebbles and Pearls for the Young Folks (1868) [Gribben 576], and Junius Henry Brown’s Sights and Sensations in Europe (1871) [90]. Note: most of the books Sam contributed were from American Publishing Co.