October 19 Friday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam: “Yours of 15th just received. I will tell Pamela, and remember for myself. / Your nerves must be super-sensitive under the horrible strain of suspense about the machine. You have been so kind to me that I am sincerely desirous of helping you.” Orion wanted to go to N.Y. to look after Sam’s interests [MTP].
October 17 Wednesday – Orion Clemens wrote three letters this date to Sam, all about a house for sale which he hoped to buy for $3,500 and to ask his opinion [MTP].
October 16 Tuesday – See Oct. 14 for Sam’s disposition of his letter to Hartford City Government.
October 15 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Orion about the typesetter; letter not extant but referred to in Orion’s Oct. 19 [MTP].
Sam also responded to Rev. George Bainton’s Oct. 6 letter. Bainton had asked if Sam used any particular methods in his composition work, and Sam’s answers are instructive and insightful into his thoughts on composition theory.
October 14 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote a long letter of complaint to the Hartford City Government, again about electric lights and health concerns over “open sewers.” On Oct. 16, Sam wrote on the letter,
The official health refused to back up the hearsay statistics. Therefore this project was abandoned. SLC.[MTP].
Sam’s notebook entry for Oct. 15 related his actions for this day:
October 13 Saturday – J.B. Smiley (Samwell Wilkins) wrote from Kalamazoo, Mich. that he’d just published his second book and was collecting “the comments of the humorists of the country” — he would like to send Sam a set of his “two little volumes” [MTP]. “Curio,” Sam noted on the envelope.
October 12 Friday – Thomas Fitch sent Sam an account in the St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat of his speech given in St. Louis this date [MTP]. No letter is with the clipping in the file.
October 11 Thursday – A Nov. 1 bill from Postal Telegraph-Cable Co. of Hartford shows a 29c telegram, the second this date to Mrs. S.L. Clemens [MTP].
October 10 Wednesday – Grace E. King arrived in Hartford for a visit with the Clemens [MTNJ 3: 434n90]. The visit would be interrupted when Sam and Livy went to New York to see Theodore and Susan L. Crane who had likely traveled there for medical treatment for Theo, who’d suffered a stroke. Grace was still there on Election Day, Nov.
October 9 Tuesday – In Hartford Franklin G. Whitmore wrote for Sam to Frank Bliss, sending a receipt for $569.50 and advising that Bliss was correct to send both the statements and checks directly to Sam, not to the Webster & Co. [MTP].