August 30 Tuesday – How do rumors get started? Here’s one from the Brooklyn Eagle p.4 of this date:
“Dr. Clemens, a brother of ‘Mark Twain,’ is a practicing physician in Louisville.”
Thomas Swift, M.D. wrote from Hartford to Clemens.
“HOGWASH”
In a late number of the Galaxy you give an interesting specimen of this class of literature with an expressed desire for Some more.
August 25 Thursday – Sam’s article “Domestic Missionaries Wanted” first ran in the Buffalo Express [Budd, “Collected” 1011].
August 23 Tuesday – “Colonel” Alexander Curran Walker (1816-1883) wrote from McBean, Ga.
August 22 Monday – O.B. Jabbers wrote on Northern Tier Gazette letterhead, Troy, Pa. “Enclosed find an atrocity recently printed at this office to be distributed to the children and parents of the aforesaid school [no school mentioned].The undersigned line touched my feelings as a red hot poker would a sleeping cat” [MTP]. No article in file.
August 21 Sunday – In the evening, Thomas K. Beecher gave a memorial tribute to Jervis Langdon in Elmira’s Opera House [MTL 4: 182n1]. Sam & Livy probably stayed in Elmira until the day after the memorial, and then returned to Buffalo [MTL 4: 185].
August 17 or 24 Wednesday –Sam wrote from Elmira or Buffalo to his sister Pamela Moffett.
August 13 Saturday – Sam wrote from Elmira to George L. Hutchings, declining to lecture.
“I haven’t the slightest idea of ever talking again on a platform. Congratulate me on my emancipation!” [MTL 5: 686].
August 11 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss: “This is a house of mourning, now. My wife is nearly broken down with grief & watching.” In a lighter note, he recalled the exchange of letters he had with “that publisher,” probably the D. Appleton & Co.
August 8 Monday – Jervis Langdon’s funeral. His obituary was printed in the Buffalo Express, incorporating Sam’s eulogy [McCullough 224]. The Mayor of Elmira, John Arnot (1789-1873), requested that all local businesses close for two hours during the funeral [MTL 4: 183].
Sam telegraphed Elisha Bliss:
“Receipt of your check for two thousand dollars is here—hereby acknowledged. Saml L Clemens” [MTPO].
August 7 Sunday – from Elmira Sam wrote a eulogy for Jervis Langdon, and sent it to Josephus N. Larned, his partner on the Express, for use in that newspaper [MTL 4: 181-2].