September 7 Sunday – John Brusnahan, foreman at the N.Y. Herald, wrote to Sam:
I gave my report to Mr. Howland yesterday. He took it home to ponder over it. I am vain enough to think I have fired a pretty heavy shot into the Mergenthaler [MTP].
September 6 Saturday – Orion Clemens finished his Sept. 5 to Sam:
To-day Ma’s room has that dreadful urinary smell which characterized Mr. Stott’s during the last five or six years of his life. Ma is wild about the box with blue stripes you sent her, and into which you strove to put every thing she could need [MTP].
September 5 Friday – Orion Clemens began a letter to Sam he finished Sept. 6: “We are delighted you are so much relieved from your terrible suspense…./I will write to Sherrard Clemens, though I cannot answer his questions” [MTP]. See Sept. 1 entry.
Wm. B. Smith & Son, Flour, Grain, Feed, Baled and Loose Hay and Straw, Hartford, billed $28.45 for Aug 1, 4, 18 oats, meal; Paid Sept.12 [MTP].
September 4 Thursday – In Onteora Park near Tannersville, N.Y. Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore, now back in Hartford, asking if he would send three or four photographs of himself to give to friends at the park/club [MTP].
Webster & Co. sent Sam the “Books sent out during August, 1890” postmarked this day, and totaling 6,802 books including 1,096 CY [MTP].
September 3 Wednesday – In Onteora Park near Tannersville, N.Y. Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall about rotten fruit and larger-than-ordered fruit baskets from a New York merchant named Goldsmith. Pay the man $42 and let him sue for the rest of the bill, Sam argued. After receiving too much bad fruit Sam had complained to Hall; the quality improved but larger baskets were sent without authorization. When the bill came, larger than agreed ($3 each) prices were charged.
September 2 Tuesday – Sam gave a Browning reading for the gathering at Onteora Park [Beckwith’s unpublished papers at the Smithsonian; offered by a MT scholar who wishes to remain unnamed].
September 1 Monday – In Tannersville, N.Y. Sam wrote a short note to Sherrard Clemens II, who evidently had written asking about one of his English ancestors. Sam answered:
…I am wholly ignorant. I knew of the patriot Clemens, & of his execution as one of Charles’s judges, & also that he had at an earlier day been English Ambassador at the Spanish court; but I had not heard until now that he married a Spanish wife [MTP].
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August 31 Sunday – In Onteora Park near Tannersville, N.Y., Sam wrote to Orion and Mollie Clemens. He was just back from Washington and shared the news that Nevada Senator John P. Jones promised to “set himself seriously to work to raise the capital” in December or January.
Doesn’t want to begin until he can walk the disciples right up to the machine & show it to them. Thinks he will have no trouble about raising the money then. Well, we must wait & see. So I am feeling reasonably comfortable [MTP].
August 30 Saturday – In Onteora Park near Tannersville, N.Y., Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall. He referenced what was probably the subject of his one-day trip to Philadelphia on Aug. 28.
I failed with the monumental humbug of the century; so you’ll have to fall back on other possibilities, Watson Gilder and the Methodist Book Concern, &c. I shall be down again perhaps in a week or sooner, and then we can consider Whitmore.