March 30 Tuesday – In the evening Sam attended the Asylum Hill Congregational Church benefit for Joe Twichell, which included the sale of pews. Sam’s pew was also for sale at $150. See Mar. 25 from Hubbard.

General Wesley Merritt for West Point wrote to Sam:

Your note is just received [probably sent Mar. 27]. I am very glad you are coming. Mrs. Merritt and I will be delighted to have you and the Rev. Mr. Twitchell [sic] as our guests during your stay, and will let you do as you please as to hours of “coming in” and returning. Our quarters are always open. [¶] There are stages at the stations for all trains and you can drive at once to my quarters [Leon 234-5].

Urban E. Hicks wrote from Portland Oregon, where he was a compositor, to Sam. He thanked him for the,

…two handsomely bound books — Huck Finn and P. and P. The grace of the present is appreciated not only for their intrinsic worth, but all the more highly because it comes from the author, an old time boyhood acquaintance.

Hicks praised both books but thought HF suited his “case the closer.” Hicks wrote that his “heart swelled with pride when I read the Dedication” (inscribed by Sam). Hicks recalled many names from Paris and Hannibal, Mo., remembering Sam as being more in Paris, though his memory admittedly was “baldheaded and dim” [MTP]. Note: anyone studying the early days of Hannibal needs to study the people named in this letter. John Marshall Clemens and family left Paris when Sam was a four-year-old.