February 16 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to the Portland Oregonian editor, George H. Himes, about his old Hannibal printer co-worker, Urban E. Hicks, who evidently had moved around quite a lot and was living in the Portland area.

…Hicks was the last man I should have expected to exhibit so much restless activity. Wales McCormick & John Hamilton were the boys one would have expected that of…

When our children are grown — that will be some years yet — my wife & I are going everywhere; & then we shall come to Portland & take you at your word.

You have another friend of mine there — Lieut. C.E.S. Wood, late of the Commandant’s staff at West Point — a choice man, & an able & artistic amateur printer, too [MTP]. (Editorial emphasis).

Note: C.E.S. Wood was the man who secretly printed 50 copies of 1601 on a West Point press. McCormick was Sam’s fellow printer in Hannibal; Hamilton a pilot friend (MTP’s subject file lists a John N. Hamilton, no years of birth/death; see www.marktwainproject.org letter notes with letter Sam to Elizabeth W. Smith, “Aunt Betsey,” Oct. 13? 1859). Sam and Livy did go through Portland in 1895 on his world tour. (In 1971 this editor heard of that visit, and now you’re reading this volume.)