January 11 Monday – Sam gave his “Vandals” lecture to about 1,200 in Rouse’s Opera House, Peoria, Illinois. Jervis Langdon celebrated his 60 th birthday.

January 10 Sunday – Sam wrote from Galesburg to Harriet Lewis, Livy’s cousin who was Sam and Livy’s ally, early on in 1868 pretending to be the object of Sam’s affections to hide their affair from the Langdons. Sam’s tongue in cheek letter about breaking Harriet’s heart was sublime and hilarious:

January 9 Saturday – The Rockford Register printed a review of Sam’s lecture there:
We never saw an audience so determined to laugh “out loud” …we confess to having laughed ourselves until our sides fairly ached…We congratulate those who were present, and we feel deep sympathy for those who remained away and missed a grand opportunity of hearing a speaker who, as a humorist and wit, stands unrivaled on the American stage [MTL 3: 8-9n1].

January 8 Friday – Sam traveled to Monmouth, Illinois, 170 miles southwest of Chicago. The Chicago Tribune’s review worked to place the reader in the hall on that night of January 7, 1868:

January 7 Thursday – After the Rockford lecture and past midnight, Sam wrote from Rockford to Mary Mason Fairbanks, and to Livy. (Over half of Sam’s nearly daily love letters to Livy have been lost.) That evening Sam again gave his “Vandals” lecture at Library Hall, Chicago, Illinois [MTL 3: 8-9].

January 6 Wednesday – Sam gave his “Vandals” lecture at Brown’s Hall in Rockford, Illinois to about a thousand people [Schmidt].

January 5 Tuesday – The Indianapolis Journal reviewed Sam’s lecture:

January 4 Monday – Sam gave his “Vandals” lecture at The Metropolitan, Indianapolis, Indiana. 

John Morris wrote:

January 3 Sunday – In a letter of Jan. 14 to Livy, Sam answered her question of what he did on this day. Where was I on Sunday, Jan 3? In Fort Wayne. Had my breakfast brought up, & lay in bed till 1 P.M. I did want to go to church, & the bells sounded very inviting, but it seemed a plain duty to rest all I could….Yes I lay abed till 1 P.M. & read your Akron & Cleveland letters several times—& read the Testament—& re-read Beecher’s sermon on the love of riches being the root of all evil—and read Prof.

January 2 Saturday – Sam made an error in his schedule, not appearing on Dec. 29 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This was a make up date and he gave the “American Vandal Abroad” lecture at Hamilton’s Hall in Ft. Wayne. Afterward he wrote from Ft. Wayne to Livy: