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:
April – Sam sent a spoof to be inserted in a copy of Innocents Abroad for Jane L. Stanford, wife of the ex-governor of California. The note claimed he was the source for “E pluribus Unum” [MTL 4: 103-4].
March 31 Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Charles Frederick Wingate (1848-1909), a New York correspondent of the Springfield, Mass. Republican.
March 27 Sunday – Sam and Livy wrote in the afternoon from Buffalo to Jervis & Olivia Lewis Langdon.
“It is snowing furiously, & had been, the most of the day & part of the night…albeit snow is very beautiful when falling, its loveliness passes away very shortly afterward. The grand unpoetical result is merely chilblains & slush” [MTL 4: 98-100].
March 26 Saturday – In the morning Sam looked out his master bedroom window and saw flames on the roof of 455 Delaware Street. He and Patrick McAleer (1846-1906), his coachman for many years, raced to help. McAleer rang fire-alarm box 62 at the corner of Virginia and Delaware. Reigstad writes:
March 22 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to James Redpath, his lecture circuit agent.
“Dear Red: I am not going to lecture any more forever. I have got things ciphered down to a fraction now. I know just about what it will cost us to live & I can make the money without lecturing. Therefore old man, count me out” [MTL 4: 94].
March 21 Monday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to James T. Fields, senior partner in Fields, Osgood & Co., a prestigious Boston publishing company. Fields preceded William Dean Howells as editor of the Atlantic Monthly.
March 19 Saturday – Sam’s article, “A Mysterious Visit,” a delightful spoof on income taxes and deductions, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 166]. A second article attributed to Sam, “Literary Guide to Williams & Packard’s System of Penmanship,” also was printed in the Express [McCullough 170].
March 18 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Hattie Booth, an autograph seeker [MTL 4: 93].
March 16 Wednesday – Sam telegraphed an unidentified person, declining to lecture “during the present season” [MTL 4: 92].