March 8 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy about writing the article the night before and being unable to sleep until daylight. He rose at 9:30 AM and wrote letters. “I’ll call on the Hookers or die. Saw Mr. Hooker a moment after I left Mrs. B. He was the very man I wanted to see. Because I like him, in spite of prejudice and everything else” [MTL 3: 149]. 

Sam also wrote to John Russell Young, editor of the New York Tribune, sending the “Funeral” article [MTL 3: 150].

March 7 Sunday – Sam wrote a “long newspaper article…till 11 o’clock [PM],” probably “The White House Funeral,” a scathing mock report of President Andrew Johnson’s final cabinet meeting before Grant’s inauguration of Mar. 4. The article was in proofs and not published, most likely due to reports of Johnson’s severe illness [MTL 3: 148, 151n2]. Note: In those days, the press still had some class.

March 6 Saturday – Sam wrote twice from Hartford to Livy. He’d seen “a dozen or two” of the illustrations for Innocents Abroad, and wrote that they were “very artistically engraved.” He praised the talents of the engraver, Truman “True” Williams.

March 5 Friday – Sam arrived in Hartford, where he wrote Livy. Sam called on the Courant office during the day, but Gov. Hawley had traveled to Washington, D.C. to see Grant’s inauguration. Hawley was to arrive back in Hartford this evening and call on Sam at his hotel. Sam then visited the Twichells and left at half past eleven, refusing their kind offer to stay with them while in Hartford. Sam stayed instead at the Allyn House Hotel [MTL 3: 136-8, 143].

March 4 Thursday – Sam wrote from Lockport to Livy:
“My last lecture (for some time, at least,) is delivered, & I am so glad that I must fly to you (on paper,) & make you help me hurrah. The long siege is over, & I may rest at last. I feel like a captive set free” [MTL 3: 134].
Sam was not through lecturing, but he would have a twelve-day rest. He left Lockport for Hartford, traveling all night and part of the next day.

March 3 Wednesday – Sam gave his “Vandals” lecture, which had been postponed from Feb. 27, in Arcade Hall, Lockport, New York [MTPO].
Reverend Joseph L. Bennett (b. 1823 or 1824) called on Clemens in the evening. Referred to in Sam’s Mar. 4 to Livy:

March 1 Monday – Sam gave his “Vandals” lecture at Concert Hall in Geneseo, New York [MTPO].
Sam wrote from Rochester, NY to Livy:

March – Sam’s OPEN LETTER TO COM. VANDERBILT appeared in the March edition of Packard’s Monthly: The Young Men’s Magazine. The letter was a sarcastic blast at Cornelius Vanderbilt, which parodied the effusive and uncritical press Vanderbilt usually received [Camfield, bibliog.].

February 28 Sunday – Sam wrote from Rochester, New York finishing the Feb. 27 letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks. He also wrote to Livy:

February 27 Saturday –Sam traveled all night and arrived in Lockport, some 250 miles. He wrote from Lockport, New York to Livy. Sam wrote much more flippantly about Jervis than he had in the past. The two men were becoming closer friends, and Sam loved to tease Livy, or anyone whom he liked. Sam also wrote to Jane Clemens and family, and started a letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks [MTL 3: 114]. Note: also Sam’s first meeting of John De La Fletcher Slee (1837-1901). See 119n4 in source.