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:
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: