April 19? Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Orion Clemens. Sam had washed his hands of the Tennessee Land several times, and the property had caused a rift between him and Orion.
“As for the land, sell it at once & forever, if that Pittsburgh man sticks to his word. $50,000 is all it is worth, maybe” [MTL 4: 113].
April 16 Saturday – Livy & Sam wrote from Buffalo to Susan L. Crane, Livy’s adopted sister. They’d received a letter from Jervis who was in Richmond, Va., and moving further South to Charleston and Savannah for his growing illness. Most of the letter is by Livy, but Sam intruded with:
April 15 Friday – Livy fired Harriet the maid. Sam wrote on Apr. 16: “I had rather discharge a perilous & unsound cannon than the soundest servant girl that ever was” [MTL 4: 110].
Sam received a letter (not extant) from Thomas A. Kennett asking if Sam might pay something now. The first payment on purchase of the Express wasn’t till August [Apr. 16 to Jervis Langdon].
April 14 Thursday – Sam loaned Josephus Larned, his partner on the Express, $3,000 for one year against his interest in the newspaper. Bowen & Rogers attorneys drew the papers and John Slee advised Sam.
April 13 Wednesday – In Buffalo, Sam wrote to his brother Orion, who had asked if Sam could write him a letter of introduction to a Mr. Webster of the Republican [St. Louis?]. Sam could not remember the man. He also arranged to give Orion a credit at a St. Louis book dealer.
April 12 Tuesday – “Mark Twain on Agriculture” ran in the Buffalo Express.
(I can never touch the subject of Agriculture without getting excited. But you understand what I mean.) Under the head of “Memoranda” I shall take hold of this neglected topic, and by means of a series of farming and grazing articles of blood-curdling interest will proceed to lift the subject of Agriculture into the first rank of literary respectability [McCullough 176].
April 10 Sunday – In an exchange of pulpits, Rev. Thomas K. Beecher of Elmira Congregational Church came to Buffalo and preached at Grosvenor W. Heacock’s Lafayette Presbyterian Church. In his April 16 & 17 to Jervis and Olivia Lewis Langdon, Sam noted Beecher’s morning and evening sermons: “…the evening sermon, to a crowded house, was received with prodigious favor…” [MTL 4: 110; Reigstad 131-32].
April 4 Monday ca. – Alice Spaulding (1847?-1935) and Clara L. Spaulding (1849-1935), twin sisters, daughters of Henry C. Spaulding, Elmira lumber and coal dealer, came to stay with the Clemenses for ten days [MTL 4: 109].
April 2 Saturday – Sam’s article, “The Facts in the Great Land Slide Case,” about his days in Washoe, was printed in the Buffalo Express. “Each new witness only added new testimony to the absurdity of a man’s claiming to own another man’s property because his farm had slid down on top of it” [McCullough 172].
Jervis Langdon wrote to Sam and Livy:
Richmond April 2d 1870
Dear Children
April 1 Friday – Sam & Livy wrote from Buffalo to Jervis & Olivia Lewis Langdon. There was the usual horseplay and teasing (she was on his lap) and announcements that they were getting ready to go to England. Jervis and wife were to hurry to visit them before they left. Sam wrote: