February 9 Thursday – Charles Webster reported an out-of-court settlement with Hubbard Brothers of Philadelphia, who had failed to pay for copies of Grant’s Memoirs. The settlement was for $25,000 in cash and property against a claim of $32,000 [MTNJ 3: 287n204].

The New York Times, Feb.10, “Theatrical Gossip” p.8 ran a blurb about this day’s incorporation of “The Players”:

Articles of incorporation were filed yesterday [Feb. 9] of a club to be known as “The Players,” Augustin Daly, Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett, A.M. Palmer, Brander Matthews, Harry Edwards, Lawrence [Laurence] Hutton, Judge Joseph F. Daly, William Bispham, Samuel L. Clemens, Gen. William T. Sherman, Joseph Jefferson, John Drew, John A. Lane, and Stephen H. Olin being the incorporators. The objects of the club, as described at length in THE TIMES recently, are “the promotion of social intercourse between the representative members of the dramatic profession and of the kindred professions, literature, painting, sculpture, and music and their patrons, the creation of a library relating especially to the history of the American stage, and the preservation of pictures, bills of plays, photographs, and curiosities connected with such history.” [Note: See Jan 6 for founding ].

Note: Edwin Booth, along with producer Augustin Daly, was a prime mover and founder of the Players Club. He purchased a brownstone on Grammercy Park and had it redecorated by architect Stanford White (1853-1906) to give the club a clubhouse. The club’s bylaws suggested help for performers on the ragged edge, but the club was more given to helping the elite members. Sam came to use the location as a second home while in New York [A. Hoffman 344-5]. Note: White was the most prominent architect of the Gilded Age; he was shot and killed while attending a performance at Madison Square Garden, leading to a “trial of the century,” sensationalized by William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers. The case inspired the movie Ragtime.

Henry Kuh wrote from Chicago to Sam enclosing a bill of a play by Kuh’s Company, Meisterschaft by Mark Twain for Sat. Feb. 4, 1888. Kuh trusted “we did not infringe on your copyright, especially as the performance was given for a charitable purpose.” No charity is specified [MTP].