January 14 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote a short note to Charles Webster, acknowledging receipt of $480 from the Slote Co. and $646.68 from American Publishing Co. He PS’d that Webster had not sent the monthly checks to Keokuk for his mother and brother.

Charles Webster wrote that Sam misunderstood — he did not “propose to pay Mrs. Grant more than is due her.” He didn’t dare to pay more than $50,000 down on the notes until sure of more cash coming in. He also bore bad news, good news:

We had a fire yesterday morning that burned up 1016 Grant Half Morocco books 300 Huck Finns 15000 frontspiece vol 2 and some other stuff. Everything was fully insured [MTP].