March 12, 1869 Friday

March 12 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy.
I am not all afraid of the Hookers, now—dine there tonight. Woe! WOE! WOE! you blessed little rascal!….P.S.—I go to Boston to-morrow, at Nasby’s request, to spend two days with him & the literary lions of the “Hub.” Monday night I leave there for New York—lecture Tuesday in Newtown, & the—very—next—evening, I spurn the U.S. Mail & bring my kisses to my darling myself! [MTL 3: 161-5].

March 10, 1869 Wednesday

March 10 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy and her brother [MTL 3: 158]. Before leaving Hartford, Sam discovered that the directors of the American Publishing Co. wanted out of the contract to publish Innocents Abroad. When Elisha Bliss threatened to publish it on his own after Sam had threatened suit, the board of directors relented and Bliss went forward with the book, which would not appear until July.

March 8, 1869 Monday

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, 1869 Sunday

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, 1869 Saturday

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, 1869 Friday

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, 1869 Thursday

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, 1869 Wednesday

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:

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