January 15 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Robert M. Howland, his old mining buddy from Nevada days. Sam’s last mention of Howland was to Calvin Higbie on Dec. 16, 1886. He’d run into Howland in New York, and Sam felt him prosperous enough to recommend that Higbie seek financial help from him. Howland may still have been in the east, and interested in speculation.

My Dear Robert —

A thing has occurred to me. It is this. It is just possible that the Philadelphia Company are waiting till they can improve their invention up to a point that will meet all requirements of their great English & other contracts. If the inference is correct, why couldn’t they save time by striking up a trade with us? — for our machine will doubtless fill that bill without any waiting [MTP].

Sam’s further reference to a machine that “prints the message at every station on the line,” suggests this may be the telegraph apparatus of Paige’s that he’d acquired, not the typesetter. Just what Howland’s interest in it was is obscure. (See index & entries for “Paige electric telegraphic apparatus,” MTDBD I.)