February 6, 1886 Saturday

February 6 Saturday – Sam signed a contract with James Paige, agreeing to pay him $7,000 annual salary, and undertake up to $30,000 in improvements to the typesetter, with no overall ceiling on his investment responsibilities. He was also obligated to raise capital for the machine and to promote it upon completion. In exchange, Sam would gain a larger share of the profits. Hamersley, for money already invested and for legal advice, was let in for ten per cent. Powers writes:

February 5, 1886 Friday

February 5 Friday – Orion Clemens wrote Sam, acknowledging receipt of $155 check, from which he gave $5 to “Puss” Quarles and deposited $50 into his mother’s account. He’d heard from Theodore W. Crane that the Clemens family was well and from Ed F. Brownell that the papers contained word of the quarter million given to Mrs.

February 2, 1886 Tuesday 

February 2 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to an unidentified man who evidently had asked him to write more opinion of copyright law:

I had very little to say, & I said it in the current Century & before the committee…And anyway, writing miscellaneous[s] articles is a thing which I disenjoy [MTP].

February 1, 1886 Monday

February 1 Monday – Back in Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Webster, advising him to try and put publishing General Grant’s letters to Mrs. Grant off for a year. He wrote that Livy suggested it and they’d talked it over. 

February 1886

February – An agreement was reached with James W. Paige and William J. Hamersley stimulated by their Jan. 20 meeting with Sam in Elmira. Sam would undertake additional capitalization input in exchange for half ownership in the Paige typesetter. Kaplan writes:

January 31, 1886 Sunday 

January 31 Sunday – From the Hotel Normandie in New York City, Sam wrote a short letter to William C. Prime, who was representing General George B. McClellan’s widow for publishing the General’s memoirsCharles L. Webster & Co. Published McClellan’s Own Story in 1887.

January 30, 1886 Saturday

January 30 Saturday – Sam was at the Hotel Normandie in New York [Prime’s Jan. 29].

The copyright issue and bills in the U.S. Congress also resonated overseas. The London Pall Mall Gazette carried an article, “THE AMERICANS AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT” on p.7:

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