March 24 Wednesday – At the Normandie Hotel in New York, Sam met in the morning with Charles Webster; later with Jesse Grant who was negotiating to gain part ownership in Webster & Co. [Mar. 19 to Webster].
March 23 Tuesday – Sam went New York for a meeting Charles Webster and Jesse Grant at the Normandie Hotel the next morning [Mar. 19 to Webster, MTP; N.Y. Times, Mar. 24 p.2 “Personal Intelligence”]. Other business and/or pleasure was on his docket, as he spent three days in the City. This trip may be the occasion which Susy referred to in her unfinished biography of her father.
March 22 Monday – Sam presented a paper titled “Knights of Labor — The New Dynasty” to the Monday Evening Club. This was Sam’s tenth presentation to the Club since his election in 1873 [Monday Evening Club]. See Budd, Collected p.883-90. Also listed in Camfield, isterin. It wasn’t published until 1957, edited by Bernard DeVoto, in the New England Quarterly, XXX p.383-88.
March 21 Sunday – From Susy Clemens’ diary:
Sunday — Here is another of papa’s stories told to me by Jean:
“The Generous Fender”
March 20 Saturday – Charles Webster wrote to Sam, firmly against allowing a reduced share of Webster & Co. To allow Jesse Grant into the firm:
I would go very slow about taking in new partners. I don’t want to part with any of my interest but if you wish to sell any of yours I have no objection to the Grant boys, but they should have nothing to say about the conduct of the business [MTNJ 3: 220n111].
March 19 Friday – Susy Clemens’ fourteenth birthday. From Susy Clemens’ diary entry of Mar. 23:
The other day was my birthday, and I had a little birthday parting in the evening and papa acted some very funny Charades, with Mr. Gherhardt, Mr. Jesse Grant (who had come up from New York and was spending the evening with us), — and Mr. Frank Warner. — One of them was “on his knees” honys-sneeze.
There were a good many other funny ones, all, of which I don’t remember.
March 17 Wednesday – In Washington, D.C., William Dean Howells wrote to Sam. The Howells family was there for Winny Howells’ health. He enclosed a newspaper clipping, now lost, “presumably about a revivalist preacher” [MTHL 2: 551n1].
Here is a man in this paper letting himself loose on the neighbors in a way that I thought you’d like to see. Please keep it for me.
March 16 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Warren Stoddard, praising his latest work, The Lepers of Molokai (1885), which described the efforts of Joseph Damien de Veuster (1840-1889), known as “Father Damien” [MTP; Gribben 667]. Due to health problems, Stoddard had recently resigned his position as chair of English literature at the University of Notre Dame.
March 14 Sunday – Mollie Clemens finished her Mar. 13 letter to Sam.
Sunday P.M. Ma was quite weak this A.M. Could not come down to breakfast. Seemed afraid we would send for the Dr. But before noon she was better dressed in her velvet and came down to dinner. We were sitting in the parlor reading a half hour ago. She looked up and asked what time we were going home [MTP].
From Susy Clemens’ diary:
March 13 Saturday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam (Mollie added her letter on Mar. 17). He wrote about returning a check and of their mother’s finances, which were adequate. He wrote of Jane’s love of singing and dancing “(not ballet dancing). If there are no minstrels in heaven she will leave.” Mollie began a letter she finished on Mar. 17, mostly of Ma: