October 24 Thursday – Treasurer for the National Park Bank of N.Y. wrote to Sam, acknowledging his check # 4432 for $20 for the Horace Greeley Statue Fund [MTP].

Douglas Taylor, General Mercantile Printer, N.Y. wrote to Sam: “Your welcome note-letter 21st p’m’k 23 just rec’d. / I’d be delighted to run up a day or two to Hartford.” Sam wrote on the envelope, “Interesting letter from Douglas Taylor, Inc. Typesetter & Co. / Oct 1889”  [MTP].

October 23 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote a scolding apology to Henry Loomis Nelson (1846-1908) who had called on the Clemens home and been mistaken for a peddler. Loomis had been secretary of the American Copyright League and would later become editor of Harper’s Weekly. He was also an author and educator.

Great Scott, what a thoughtless man you are! Why the mischief didn’t you write on your card in the first place? …

October 22 Tuesday – William Dean Howells received Sam’s Oct. 21 and sent an answer that Elinor Howells was not well and not likely to be all winter. The two men shared the curse of puny spouses. However, Howells hoped to come alone.

October 21 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Susan L. Crane, assuring her that financial security was hers, with her securities and the royalties from the Paige machine. Sam was full of optimism. He even referred to her late husband:

I hope Theodore hovers about us & is still interested in our efforts & victories; in which case it has pleased him to hear the emissary of the greatest of newspapers order 33 machines & forget to ask what we are going to charge him for them [MTP].

October 19 Saturday – Karl Gerhardt wrote from Hartford to Sam:

Of course you shall have all the time you require in regard to the offer I made on OCTOBER 4th 1889; As a matter of form I will place the time at JUNE 1st 1889…I called on Saturday to see you but you were in N.Y…. [MTP]. Note: Gerhardt wanted Sam to influence the building of a factory for the manufacture of Paige typesetters on Gerhardt’s land. See Oct. 7 entry.

October 18 Friday – Susan L. Crane wrote to Sam, having received this evening five royalties on the Paige typesetter; it seemed “very tame” for her to simply say “thank you.” She continued to say it for six pages [MTP].

October 17 Thursday – In Cambridge, Mass., William Dean Howells wrote reporting on the proofs of CY, and telling Sam what he probably already knew:

This last batch, about the King’s and the Boss’s adventures, is all good; and it’s every kind of a delightful book. Passages in it do my whole soul good. — I suppose the Church will get after you; and I think it’s a pity that you don’t let us see how whenever Christ himself could get a chance, all possible good was done [MTHL 2: 614].

October 16 Wednesday –Hartford. Sam, laid up in bed, wrote again to Frank Fuller. After a paragraph about his old tendency to speculate and his eventual lack of interest in it, Sam talked about his health.

October 15 Tuesday – The New York World ran a piece about the Earl of Galloway rape case in England, in which the earl was acquitted on Oct. 14. Sam made an entry about it in his notebook. The article implied that the earl was found not guilty because of his power and wealth [MTNJ 3: 523n135].

Joseph T. Goodman wrote from Fresno:

October 14 Monday – In Hartford, on or just after A.F. Kelly’s letter of Oct. 12 with check arrived, Sam forwarded them to Franklin G. Whitmore and asked him to acknowledge receipt [MTP]. Note: allowing for mailing time between Elmira and Hartford, this would be the soonest Sam might have forwarded the letter and check to Whitmore.

The New York Times ran a short paragraph on p.8 of Sam’s invitation to a benefit:

THE HORACE GREELEY STATUE.