October 5 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Jesse Madison Leathers, a distant relative who had inquired about the feasibility of claiming part of the English Durham estate. Citing the cost that the Tichborne claimants spent unsuccessfully, and the 600 plus years the present heirs had held the lands, Sam wrote “It would be too much like taking Gibraltar with blank cartridges” [MTL 6: 545-6].

Sam also wrote a letter to an unidentified person to raise funds for the Massachusetts Infant Asylum’s December fair. The letter was used to make a book of autographs valued in excess of one thousand dollars, and was reprinted in several newspapers. Sam agreed:

“…to be one of a thousand citizens who shall agree to contribute two or more of their children to this enterprise” [MTL 6: 549].

Reginald Cholmondeley wrote from Shrewsbury, England to ask if the Clemens family might visit him the week of Aug. 2, 1876 [MTP].