March 28 Saturday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to Reginald Cholmondeley of Shrewsbury, England. (Cholmondeley had warned Sam about the Australian imposter.) Reginald had asked if feuds like the Shepherdson-Grangerford trouble were factual. Yes, they had existed in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas, just like he’d described in Huck Finn.
“I came very near being an eye-witness of the general engagement detailed in the book. The details are historical and correct.”
Sam also responded about revisiting England:
“Mrs. Clemens wont let the children’s schooling be interrupted this year. But next year maybe I can meet the original Bilgewater…” [MTP].
With the editing help of Howells, who wrote again after receiving the draft on Mar. 26, Sam finished a letter from Hartford to Frank A. Nichols, thanking him for his honorary membership in the Concord Free Trade Club:
Dear Sir,—I am in receipt of your favor of the 24th instant, conveying the gratifying intelligence that I have been made an honorary member of the Free Trade Club of Concord, Massachusetts, and I desire to express to the club, through you, my grateful sense of the high compliment thus paid me. It does look as if Massachusetts were in a fair way to embarrass me with kindnesses this year. In the first place, a Massachusetts judge has just decided in open court that a Boston publisher may sell, not only his own property in a free and unfettered way, but also may as freely sell property which does not belong to him but to me; property which he has not bought and which I have not sold. Under this ruling I am now advertising that judge’s homestead for sale, and, if I make a good a sum out of it as I expect, I shall go on and sell out the rest of his property.
In the next place, a committee of the public library of your town have condemned and excommunicated my last book and doubled its sale. This generous action of theirs must necessarily benefit me in one or two additional ways. For instance, it will deter other libraries from buying the book; and you are doubtless aware that one book in a public library prevents the sale of a sure ten and a possible hundred of its mates. And, secondly, it will cause the purchasers of the book to read it, out of curiosity, instead of merely intending to do so, after the usual way of the world and library committees; and then they will discover, to my great advantage and their own indignant disappointment, that there is nothing objectionable in the book after all.
And finally, the Free Trade Club of Concord comes forward and adds to the splendid burden of obligations already conferred upon me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, an honorary membership which is worth more than all the rest, just at this juncture, since it indorses me as worthy to associate with certain gentlemen whom even the moral icebergs of the Concord library committee are bound to respect.
May the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts endure forever, is the heartfelt prayer of one who, long a recipient of her mere general good will, is proud to realize that he is at last become her pet Thanking you again, dear sir, and gentlemen,
I remain, / Your obliged servant, / S.L. Clemens. / (Known to the Concord Winter School of Philosophy as “Mark Twain.”) [MTHL 2: 877-8]. Note: see this source for Howells’ edits used and unused by Sam.
Sam may have gone to New York again, for on this date he inscribed a copy of Huck Finn to Dean Sage: “To / Dean Sage / with the warmest regards. / The Author / ~ / Mch 28/85” [MTP]. Note: Sage may have visited Hartford.
In Hartford, Sam also sent a note to an unidentified person who had furnished him with a review, probably of Huck Finn [MTP].
On or about this date, in Hartford, Sam wrote to Charles Webster, directing him to leave:
…2 cloth Finn’s at Everett House Monday afternoon & write in pencil on one of the brown paper covers, “Remus,” & on the other, “J R Randall, Augusta Ga., Chronicle”. Note: James Ryder Randall (1839-1908), author of the famous war song of the Confederacy, “Maryland, My Maryland” became the Washington correspondent for the Augusta Chronicle.
Sam wrote he intended to go to General Grant’s house “toward 2 p.m.” and if there were anything he should know before going there, “you or Gerhardt meet me at the RR station” [MTP]. Note: this letter may have been earlier than Mar. 28, but does not refer to the Friday, Mar. 20 date when Gerhardt accompanied Sam with the bust of Grant. Sam made many New York trips during this period to supervise the publication of Huck Finn and to check on General Grant’s progress, to show proofs, etc.
On or just after this date Sam went to New York; he was there on Mar. 31.
Pitts H. Burt wrote from Cincinnati, having just rec’d HF [MTP].