September 20 Thursday – In Elmira Sam answered Sarah Knowles Bolton’s letter of Sept. 17, saying that subscription books received “various kinds” of royalties, but “not often 10%. Five per cent is good enough” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore sending some sort of typesetter statistics, and liked Whitmore’s suggestion to make one Rogers a watchman for the Paige machine. He advised,

The family will spend from next Monday night till perhaps the following Friday, at the Murray Hill hotel, en route for home [MTP]. Note: dates in N.Y. would then be Sept. 24-28.

Orion Clemens wrote to Sam, sorry he could not have come — could he visit in the fall? Ma was getting about well [MTP].

Henry W. Cleveland wrote to Sam on the office of Louisville Mayor letterhead: Since the Beecher book was stillborn, would he consider Entranced, his “Romance of Natural Religion” or The Life and Times of Jefferson Davis, which “he will not write unless I go there and do it for him.” Sam wrote on the envelope, “A Reverend d­­__d tramp” [MTP].