April 23 Thursday – Thomas S. Nash wrote a long, tender reminiscence of Hannibal boyhood days. Most of the letter here:

Dear old friend, / I have waited for a long time for an opportunity of inflicting on you some more of my poor penmanship and bad gramar, but did not know for certain whether you were out west interviewing the earliest settlers or down South among the Cannibal Islands hence you have been spared the infliction until now, and I hope not to tire you with too many words

      In the first place dear Sam I was very gratified for the kind letter you wrote me from Keokuk, and have added to my deep gratitude by sending me your new Book Huckleberry Finn, which I received some time since. I have not owing to the press of business had a chance to read much of it. I read several Chapters in the “Century” and was very anxious to find out how the “Duke” & the “Dolphin” were finally checked off. The mere mention of the Book, takes me back in memory to “old Jim Finn of Craig’s Alley” who if I remember right perished with the burning of the old Calaboose on front St

      In yesterdays Courier I was reading a long article copied from Chicago Inter Ocean of an interview had by the reporter with your Mother in which you are shown up as being very much opposed to going to school in your early days, and this reminds me of the days when I went to school to old Cross in a little frame building on the park, and of the many pranks I had a hand in in those days, such as stealing the Bell Clapper pitching the Black Boards out the window when locked up at noon etc. I went to school then with “Andy” Fuqua, “Buck” Brown George Robards “Jim Brady” Henry Fuqua Jim McDaniel and others—Remember “Orion” well, and poor Henry. I met him on the wharf in St. Louis only a short time before the fatal accident that deprived him of life and it was from him that I received some of your earliest litterary productions while in California. How dear are the early friends of our boyhood I remember the “Hannibal Gazette” office and the time you stuck type there—Also the old Hannibal Courier— When I came home from Jacksonville where I went to school I missed you with other of the boys who had gone overland to California. I was in the post office from 49 to 53, then apprenticed to Wm League who published the “Hannibal Messenger” and deviled it rolled it pressed it and set up for near a year but it did neither agree with my inside nor my ambition to get rich in a hurry, so I took to Printing under old “Dick Hardy” and have stuck to it ever since though it has not proved a way of gaining wealth in a hurry.

      I was married 25 years ago to a nice little woman in Monroe Co. Had two children both girls and are married & am grand pa

      I have been to Keokuk several times but never knew until to day that Orion & your mother lived there or I should certainly have gone to some trouble to have had a good shake of Orion’s hand once again—

      Since you were here another of our old friends has gone to his reward, Thos K. Collins died the last of February. One by one the old settlers dissapear, and even I after an absence of near Twenty years return here to live and walk the streets of the town in which I was born. I meet but few familiar faces that I knew in other days, but can find the names of an hundred inscribed on the white marble of the surrounding grave yards—Soon they will lay me there, and I shall sleep quietly, but I hope I shall not be entirely forgotten—

      Time flies swiftly away and admonishes me to be up and doing. So I will bring my somewhat extended letter to a close, but cannot do so without renewing my deep sense of gratitude for the beautiful Book you wrote and which you so kindly sent me—I shall value it highly, as I can in memory see you speak as I read—Don’t forget me Sam. I cherish the memory of all the friends of my youth, whether they have in the struggle of life gained wealth and fame or merely like myself still possess only a plain but honest name

      This of me often Write to me Sometimes—Ever your friend [MTP].

James B. Pond wrote from NYC about the hot weather for April. “Homer writes that the Jenny will be shipped as soon as he can find one nice enough” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “get a little donkey”

An unidentified person signed as “A Socialist” wrote to encourage Clemens to emulate Voltaire, who he claimed “ridiculed dogmatic superstition of the 18th century out of existence….Why should not Mark Twain imitate his noble example and wield his mighty pen for the abolition of Wage-slavery—the curse of the 19th century!” [MTP]. Note: Clemens was sometimes compared to Voltaire; see mentions of him in Gribben 729.