November 30 Tuesday – Sam’s 51st Birthday.

In Hartford Sam wrote to James B. Pond, explaining that though they had room for Henry M. Stanley to stay with them while he lectured in Hartford, remodeling made “one of our guest rooms…uninhabitable,” so that Pond would need to stay at a hotel. Sam promised to make up for this with a later invitation for billiards.

By what train & at what hour shall you & Stanley arrive? — & will it be the 8th, or the day before? Because we want Rev. Dr. Parker & General Franklin & one or two others to dinner; & if it be the 7th we can have it at 6 p.m. as usual, but if it is to be the 8th, the hour must be 3 o r 4, (or 5 at the latest,) so that Stanley can have a short nap before going on the platform if he would like to.

Sam disclosed that Livy had wanted Parker to introduce Stanley; then the newspaper brought news that Parker had been chosen for the job — Sam saw this as another “Case of mind-reading” [MTP].

In New York, Henry M. Stanley lectured at the Academy of Music. The Brooklyn Eagle gushed:

Those who had the pleasure of being present at Mr. Henry M. Stanley’s lecture in the Academy of Music last evening may fairly congratulate themselves on having seen and heard one who as an explorer has no superior among living men, and who has had few equals among the great travelers of any age. Mr. Stanley, although by birth an Englishman, has been so fully identified with American enterprise in his several journeys that we may legitimately claim him as our own [Eagle, Dec. 1, 1886 p.2 “Stanley and the Dark Continent”].

Note: Stanley was actually born a bastard in Wales, and came to the U.S. at age eighteen.

Charles Webster wrote to Sam:

A book from Stanley would be a good hit. Can’t you use your influence with him for one? [MTLTP 210n3]. Note: He also noted “McClellan looking up.” See Sam’s Dec. 14 reply.

Also in New York, discussions broke off between J.W. Schuckers through his attorneys Thomas Ewing and M.I. Southard, and Sam and James W. Paige through attorney Franklin G. Whitmore. The spacing device was ruled too incomplete (Whitmore to Ewing Nov. 30, 1886) [MTNJ 3: 267n134].

Franklin G. Whitmore wrote to Thomas Ewing about Schuckers spacing invention. Whitmore nixed any further interest citing the “many difficulties” with the device. What’s important here is that Whitmore mentions “The friendly interview with Mr. Schuckers at Mr. Clemens home…as well as your letter to me,” which places a recent visit by Schuckers to the Clemens home [MTP]