October 13 Thursday – Nathaniel Judson Burton died of pneumonia. John Hooker, his deacon, was at the bedside. Andrews quotes Twichell, who wrote in his Journal this day,

…a dark, sad day!!…I went at once to his house and found that it was even so. There I met my other brother Dr. [Edwin] Parker. In presence of the astounding fact, which overwhelmed both of us with surprize and distress we found nothing to say, but could only embrace with tears [53; Twichell’s Journal: Yale, copy at MTP].

October 12 Wednesday –

Check #  Payee  Amount  [Notes]

3866  Michael Egan  21.11  Farmer

3867  Southern NE Telephone  15.00

3869  John A. Scolley  52.61

3870  Gilbert G. Moseley  6.00  Printers

October 11 Tuesday – Alfred P. Burbank wrote to Sam setting forth an offer of Chandos Fulton to re-write the play for $300 up front and a quarter of the profits [MTP]. Note: evidently, the play as written was not “pay dirt” at all.

October 10 Monday – Webster & Co. Wrote to Sam about the articles to be in the Library of Humor book. They’d also received “a note from Gen. Lucius Fairchild who says that Robert D. Beath…will probably write the history of the G.A.R.” — should they communicate with him? Gen.Crawford’s book status was commented on, plus the gem expert at Tiffany’s possible book, which they felt too expensive to “get up…with a number of delicate plates” [MTP].

October 9 Sunday – George C. Bidwell wrote from E. Hartford to Sam arguing on behalf of convicts unfairly charged in England. Sam wrote on the envelope, “From that d___d convict” [MTP].

October 8 Saturday – In Hartford, Grace King’s letter to her mother, written at the Clemens residence, continued:

October 7 Friday – Grace King arrived to spend a weekend at the Clemens residence. From one of the guest rooms in the house she wrote her mother, Sarah Ann Miller King, of the visit.

October 6 Thursday – Several checks below to N.Y. merchants and the Glenham Hotel suggest that Sam was in the city until this day. He may have escorted Grace King to Hartford.

Check #  Payee  Amount  [Notes]

3836  A.P. Burbank  229.44

3837  Tiffany & Co  0.80  N.Y. Jeweler

October 4 Tuesday – Sam wrote a note to Livy on Lotos Club stationery, so was undoubtedly in New York on business (an Oct. 6 check to the Glenham Hotel confirms). He wrote of seeing a Mr. Choate, who had lost a son and now this “infinitely heavier & awfuler disaster.”

October 3 Monday – William Mackay Laffan wrote to Sam about the Dec. 7, 1886 investment in International Telegraph and Cable Co. 

…as to the great cable invention…let me explain to you in person, when I see you next, what a Goddamned humiliating and degrading fizzle it proved to be…and how the first of experts are the cream of asses, and how I am now fully trying to get the money back [MTNJ 3: 262n117].