October 21 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Hjalmar Boyesen, inviting him to a dinner with Charles Dudley Warner, Joe Twichell and others [MTP]
Sam also wrote to Count Claes Lewenhaupt, which probably sets the dinner date mentioned above:
Mrs. Clemens & I beg the pleasure of your company at dinner at our house at 6.15 p.m. next Monday [MTP].
October 20 Thursday – Joe Jefferson, well known actor, wrote to Charles Webster that he had contracted for his book to be published elsewhere, due to a long delay by Webster & Co. To make a firm offer [MTNJ 3: 338n113]. This loss added to the growing split between Sam and Webster.
October 19 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Webster & Co., responding to a statement sent.
You may send me $10,000; also the firm’s note or receipt for 12,073.47 to complete the $75,000 capital required by contract [MTLTP 237] Note: evidently there were surplus funds in the company, beyond what Sam had agreed and was obliged to leave in its coffers.
October 18 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook:
Tuesday, a.m., Oct. 18, 1887, Paige showed me (& Whitmore, North, Earl, & two or three others,) and experiment with his new dynamo & motor, to prove that one of the laws laid down in the electrical books is not a law at all. He thinks it a great discovery that he has thus made; & proposes to apply it in a machine which shall show surprising results.
October 17 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Webster & Co., “we do not want the book of Gems at any price,” (as proposed by G.F. Kunz, gem expert at Tiffany’s) He also asked what arrangement had been made on the Baltimore art book proposed by William Thompson Walters) with William Mackay Laffan, adding that Laffan was “going away” [MTLTP 236]. (See Sept.
October 16 Sunday – A.E. Thayer wrote from Vienna, sending Sam a long German word [MTP].
October 15 Saturday – Sam wrote John Brusnahan, foreman for the New York Herald’s compositors. Sam was able to gain inside information from Brusnahan on the progress of the Mergenthaler Linotype machine in trials at the Herald. Sam confided that the Paige machine was almost complete [MTNJ 3: 344n138].
October 14 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Webster & Co., addressing the letter to “Dear C L W & Co”:
You may write Uncle Remus, & if he doesn’t consent I will then take him by the hair myself.
You may also write Stockton & if he says no, I will take him by the hair.
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