March 24 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Mr. S. Howell who also owned a cat named “Satan.”
Our Satan is not as popular as formerly, because he brought derision upon his name by having a Kitten…. The Kitten’s name is Sin — another blunder, for sin is of no sex, whereas the kitten is [MTP from Am. Art Assoc. sale May 10, 1934 Item 127].
March 22 Saturday – † In Hartford on or just after this date Sam wrote on Whitford’s Mar. 21 envelope to Franklin G. Whitmore:
Brer, tell him all right for a very little while — then I shall probably want to sue Frohman [MTP].
March 21 Friday – Robert L. Niles wrote to Sam asking the possibility of reviving The Gilded Age play. Sam wrote on the envelope, “Brer, I will answer or dictate / SLC / This must go to Howells I guess” [MTP].
Mary Russell Perkins wrote to solicit Sam’s annual subscription of charity to the Hartford Orphan Asylum. Sam wrote on the envelope, “Brer, Send $10. SLC” [MTP].
Daniel Whitford wrote to Sam (TS of Frohman to Whitford Feb. 12 enclosed):
March 20 Thursday † – In Hartford on or just after this date Sam, through Franklin G. Whitmore, answered G.G. Green’s Mar. 19 request “that he could not spare a moment for the work you propose” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to James R. Osgood asking him the custom for reserving “a couple of the choicest (communicating) rooms” in Paris, France or New York for the “first fortnight in June” — could it be done without making advance payment?
March 19 Wednesday – Susy Clemens’ eighteenth birthday.
Sam wrote a postcard to Franklin G. Whitmore:
Yes, send me all letters that refer to the article, whether they cuss or applaud [MTP].
Rudyard Kipling’s famous interview with Mark Twain from August, 1889 ran again in the Allahabad, India The Pioneer Mail [Tenney 18; Baetzhold, John Bull 358n18].
Sam’s notebook: “Mch. 19, ’90 Chas. Hopkins Clark … one — (as trustee for Hartford Free Library) [Paige royalty sent]” [3: 569].
March 18 Tuesday – Using Franklin G. Whitmore, Sam responded to Theodore S. Parvin’s Mar. 14 request. Sam had no manuscripts to contribute for the Iowa museum [MTP]. Note: Whitmore’s note is stamped received in Iowa Mar. 20. Mail worked well in those days.
Albert Johannsen’s letter and question about HF arrived, and was probably answered this day or soon after. Sam wrote on the letter for Whitmore: “Brer, please tell him it is too long a story to tell — would require a chapter” [MTP].
March 17 Monday – In Hartford on or just after this day Sam responded to J.S. Butchelder’s Mar. 16’s query about the paper change made in Mark Twain’s Scrap-Book [MTP].
Sam also wrote to thank Andrew Carnegie for books sent, including Carnegie’s Triumphant Democracy: or Fifty Years’ March of the Republic, which Sam claimed “help to fire me up for my last book” (CY).
I am reading it again, now, & firing up for a lecture which I want to deliver on the other side one of these years. I get a little impatient sometimes, waiting for the auction of thrones… [MTP;Gribben 131].
When Henry Brevoort, Jr. built his free-standing house on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 8th Street in 1834, he and his wife, Laura, were separated from society. The fashionable residential neighborhood stretched east from Broadway, blocks from the plot his father had given him on which to build. A descendant later recalled that Henry felt "very much in the woods and quite out of it."
Booth's Theatre was a theatre in New York built by actor Edwin Booth. Located on the southeast corner of 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue, Booth's Theatre opened on February 3, 1869.
The area in which Bloomington is situated was previously inhabited by the Delaware, Potawatomi, Miami, and Eel River Miami.
Bloomington was platted in 1818. A post office has been in operation at Bloomington since 1825. Bloomington was incorporated in 1827.
Mention of Bloomfield, IN is a mistake. In August of 1853 Sam took Frink's Stage to Bloomington, IL. Sam's letter to his mother states that he went to Bloomington, Il.