November 16 Sunday – Sam’s notebook entry for this day lists songs given at an evening concert given by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers in Hartford’s Asylum Hill Congregational Church. These include, “I know that my Redeemer Lives,” “Steal Away,” and “It Causes me to Tremble,” which Sam noted was “Beautiful.” In between songs the Rev. C.W. Sheldon, secretary of the American Missionary Association, who was traveling with the group; and Joseph Twichell, and some of the singers gave short speeches. The concert was a fund raiser to build a theological seminary for southern blacks [3: 593n71].

Lewis Morris Iddings (1850-1921) journalist at this time with the N.Y. Evening Post, wrote from N.Y. to Sam:

Your note of the 5th was duly received, I was sorry to know that the Drawing Room was not [open] & have the pleasure of meeting you this season. / Pray do not consider me intrusive if I offer you my sympathies in the sadness which you must feel on the death of your aged mother. [Iddings hoped] they might meet at the University Club in N.Y. sometime. [Sam wrote on the envelope, “Iddings Will write him”] [MTP].

H. Potts for the Grand Haven, Mich. Courier-Journal wrote to ask Sam for “a brief sketch of your life” for a lecture he was preparing. Sam wrote on the envelope, “Send him the printed slip & say it is all there is / SLC” [MTP].

Marshall P. Wilder wrote from N.Y. to invite Sam to breakfast with him at Delmonico’s next Sunday, Nov. 23 at 12 o’clock to meet Mr. E.S. Willard & Mr. James Halton of London [MTP]. Note: Sam would be on his way to Elmira that day.