April 10 Sunday – The Brooklyn Eagle, on Apr. 11, 1887 page 4, ran a notice of the Apr. 10 passing of John T. Raymond. See also the N.Y. Times, Apr. 11, p.1 “COLONEL SELLERS IS DEAD”.
“There’s Millions in It”
Born in Buffalo, April 5, 1836, and dying in a hotel in Evansville, Ind., on yesterday morning, John T. Raymond, comedian, in the thirty-four years on the stage of the fifty-one which he lived on the earth played many parts. But all of them save one were either not done well enough to create a reputation for him or were better done by others. The one which he created or which revealed himself was called Mulberry Sellers, and was in part based on a book of farce written by Mark Twain and Charles D. Warner and entitled “The Gilded Age.” The speculating Southwesterner, who had infinite hope, spirit, device and mendacity, was a character which the man enacted to the life, and which he made a part of the imagination and of the speech of the people. Raymond’s characterizations before that had been conventional. His roles after that were pale reflections of Sellers. His personality was one which made “the profession” his friends and the public indulgent toward his weaknesses. He suffered from the principle which lessens the sense of obligation in those who trade is simulation. He exhibited a welcoming side to the temptations of the boards. He had the variety of domestic experience customary with the average thespian; but he made Colonel Sellers as well remembered a cause of laughter as Lord Dundreary, Bardwell, Slote and Toodles are. He lived to amuse and he effected that purpose of his life. He will be recollected kindly by a public which could, from one view point, better have spared many a better man.
And in the New York Times, p.5, an announcement by Webster & Co.
MR. BEECHER’S LIFE HISTORY.
In view of what has been said about various lives of Henry Ward Beecher, the publishing firm of Charles L. Webster & Co. announce to-day that they will publish a biography which will be written by William C. Beecher, the son, Samuel Scovil, the son-in-law, and Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, his widow. The letters, papers, and notes collected and prepared by Mr. Beecher before his death for the purpose of writing his autobiography for the firm will be used as the basis for the work. The firm say[s] that this will be the only life of Mr. Beecher in which his widow and family will have any interest.
Sam telegraphed Charles Webster, responding probably to his letter of Apr. 8
…I will come down in a day or two as soon as I have finished blocking out a novel begun last night [MTLTP 215].
From Sam’s notebook of Apr. 12 for this day:
Day before yesterday I encountered Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe on the sidewalk, & she took both of my hands in hers, & said with a strong fervency that surprised the moisture into my eyes, “I am reading your Prince & Pauper for the fourth time, & I know it’s the best book for young folk that was ever written” [MTNJ 3: 287]. See May 23 entry.