September 19, 1878 Thursday
The Clemens party spent the day looking around Milan. They would spend five days in the city.
The Clemens party spent the day looking around Milan. They would spend five days in the city.
The family left Turin at 9:15 AM and arrived at Milan at 1:30 PM [MTNJ 2: 188]. Sam’s notebook is full of things they saw in Milan, and observations on a host of items and situations.
Some favorites:
I think the arcade system is borrowed from Turin.
Saw a starchy suit of clothes marked $9—doorway full of dummies dressed—stepped in to order one like the $9—nothing inside! The old man hauled in the dummy, stripped him & I ordered the clothes sent to the hotel.
The family spent the day in Turin, shopping and enjoying the sights [MTLE 3: 101].
The Clemens family left Chambéry for Turin by the fast express train, which Sam noted “makes 4 miles an hour—the other trains make only 3 1/4 . By 11 we were out of sight of Chambery.” Three hours from Turin, the train barely won a race with a team of oxen, Sam wrote [MTNJ 2:185]. It took eight more hours to arrive in Turin, at about 7 PM. They took rooms in the Hotel d’Europe, which Sam noted had “wonderful rooms” [186]. They went to supper and drank Barolo wine.
September 15 Sunday Sam’s notebook:
Sam was awakened at 3 AM by a braying jackass in front of the hotel. The party left Geneva for Italy, stopping at Chambéry, France for a break. More from his notebook:
– John Marshall had been drafted for a border war with Iowa over a disputed boundary, but the matter was settled by this time [Wecter 56].
Sam’s fourth birthday.
The Clemens family moved to Hannibal: John, Jane, Orion, Pamela, Benjamin, Sammy (nearly age four), the baby Henry, and a slave girl Jennie. Paine, in Boy’s Life of Mark Twain says the family lived first at Pavey’s Hotel(later Planter’s Hotel). The Paveys later moved to St. Louis. Wecter gives the time of the move as “about mid-November” [56].
The first home for the Clemens was the Virginia House, a rickety two-story hotel close to the river at the northwest corner of Main and Hill Streets [Varble 129].
John Marshall sold another large parcel, 326 acres near the Ralls County line, for $2000 to Ira Stout [Wecter 52].