September 22–23 Friday – The Clemens family returned to Hartford, where they found the house in disarray:

We are in our carpetless & dismantled home living like a gang of tramps on the second floor, the rest of the house in the hands of mechanics & decorators. We have pulled down the kitchen & rebuilt it, adding twenty feet to it, & have lowered the ground in front of the greenhouse, & also carried the driveway a hundred feet further to the east [MTNJ 2: 399n148]. (Oct. 9 letter to Hattie Gerhardt)