March 17 Saturday – In Washington, D.C. Sam, with others gave a reading at the Soldiers’ Home [Fatout, MT Speaking 658]. (Note that the following news accounts report on the Authors’ readings at the Congregational Church this day; also, Sam’s notebook gives Friday (Mar. 23) for Soldiers’ Home.)
March 16 Friday – Snowbound by the blizzard, at New York’s Murray Hill Hotel, Sam wrote to Livy. Due to the storm she had not been able to join him for the trip to Washington. He’d come to New York early to attend a dinner party at Charles A. Dana’s, editor of the New York Sun. In this letter home, Sam blamed that engagement for being stuck in New York:
March 15 Thursday – Sam was still in New York City; Livy had still not arrived.
March 14 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook:
March 13 Tuesday – In New York, Sam wrote a letter of introduction for Hattie J. Gerhardt to Franklin G. Whitmore. She was seeking some sort of employment for her husband Karl.
I have no way to employ him about the machine, and in the publishing house he would be of no value without special training for the business [MTP].
March 12 Monday – In New York, Sam signed an agreement with William Mackay Laffan, exchanging 1/200th interests in the Paige typesetter and “a certain invention for quadruplexing cablegrams.” Laffan was to raise money for both projects [MTHL 2: 246n4; MTNJ 3: 340n121].
Jesse R. Grant wrote on Webster & Co. notepad to Sam anxious to see him in N.Y. or Hartford [MTP].
March 11 Sunday – In New York Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder, again about the up-coming hearings and the trip to Washington.
I’m ashamed to have put you to all that trouble for nothing. As I was very anxious to get the best quarters I could for Mrs. Clemens, I set several schemes to work, & the result is, I have secured a first rate parlor bedroom & bath room (connecting,) at the Arlington.
March 10 Saturday – Sam left Hartford for New York City [MTNJ 3: 379].
March 9 Friday – Since the blizzard of the century hit in the evening of Mar. 11, and Sunday trains were rare or non-existent, Sam went to New York City on Mar. 10 to take care of business, the plan being for Olivia to join him in time to be in Washington on Mar. 16. (See Mar. 4 to Gilder, Mar. 16 to Livy.) In his Mar.
March 8 Thursday – Joseph B. Gilder for The Critic Co. sent Sam a typed letter asking for “yes or no” about Horace’s idea that “the writer should not be affected by his own pathetic senses” [MTP].
Alfred E. Burr wrote on Hartford Times letterhead to Sam, “begging” for support of the “Good Will Club” which provided entertainment for boys and needed a larger hall [MTP].