October 21 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Susan L. Crane, assuring her that financial security was hers, with her securities and the royalties from the Paige machine. Sam was full of optimism. He even referred to her late husband:

I hope Theodore hovers about us & is still interested in our efforts & victories; in which case it has pleased him to hear the emissary of the greatest of newspapers order 33 machines & forget to ask what we are going to charge him for them [MTP].

Sam also responded to William Dean Howells’ Oct. 17 request for the rest of the proofs of CY, as he was working under deadline for his Harper’s “Editor’s Study” column.

I’m afraid we have been too slow, & must lose the Study-notice, for the book will contain about 500 pages, & I observe by the paging that the end is not yet in sight.

Sam wanted to explain why “that Yankee could not honestly say any pleasant word for the Church,” but wanted to do so when they could talk. Most of all, he wanted Howells to come see the typesetter in action [MTHL 2: 615].

Sam also wrote to Douglas Taylor, influential in the revival and organization of the Typothetae, a New York society of printers and binders. He encouraged Taylor to come to Hartford, see the Paige typesetter and let Sam convince him that the society had nothing to fear from the passage of the Chase bill [MTP]. Note: the Chase-Breckinridge Copyright legislation would pass in 1891 and would protect copyright from countries who protected American copyrights.

Mary E. Cheesewright wrote from St. John’s Wood near London to ask if a biography of Sam had been published, as she needed one for a paper she was writing; Chatto had given her Sam’s address [MTP].