January 27 Wednesday – Sam left New York in the morning and traveled by train to Washington. He intended to stay at the Ebbitt House.

January 26 Tuesday – In New York, headed to Washington the next day, Sam sent his love to the “chil’n” in a letter to Livy.

Livy dear, the contracts are signed & delivered, & everything is satisfactory.

January 25 Monday – William Mackay Laffan for the N.Y. Sun. Wrote warning that he’d seen the Baltimore (Mergenthaler) machine set type on Saturday Jan 23:

…every daily in this town will be set up by that machine inside of twelve months….This is confidential; but you’d better haul in your tents and [illegible] like hell [MTP].

January 24 Sunday – William C. Prime wrote to Sam from New York, asking when Sam might be in town to discuss the McClellan book. Prime was representing General George B. McClellan’s widow for publishing the General’s memoirs. [MTP]. Note: Prime also wrote Dec. 31, 1885.

In 1908, Sam dictated this about Prime, who was James Hammond Trumbull’s brother-in law:

January 23 Saturday – Ambrose Bierce’s short article in The Wasp (San Francisco) was a sneering discussion of Sam’s Jan. 18 speech at the Typothetae Dinner. Bierce felt Sam had lost his humor: “foremost among those desecrators of the tomb of Mark the Jester is Mark the Money-worm….”his last atrocious desecration” was the speech as reported by the Associated Press.

January 22 Friday – James B. Pond wrote to Sam; he’d been on the road with Clara Louise Kellogg and was trying unsuccessfully to get a commitment from George W. Cable for a reading in Concord, Mass. Pond confessed that Sam’s “letter could be read both ways, or at least I read it so” [MTP]. See Jan. 20 entry.

January 21 Thursday – An amendment to the co-partnership agreement for Webster & Co. Was added. It gave Charles Webster the right to withdraw more of his share of the profits (save on Grant’s Memoirs), raised his salary to $3,000, and put the interest rate on Sam’s capital invested down to six percent from eight [MTLTP 170]. Note: the source does not say, but presumably the amended “No. 2” contract was signed this day.

January 20 Wednesday – The Hartford Courant ran “The Typothete,” on pages 1-2, quoting Sam’s New York speech of Jan. 18 at Delmonico’s.

One of the festive events in New York city Monday evening was the yearly Delmonico dinner of the Typotheter. This peculiar and rather awe-inspiring word is alleged to be Greek and so signify being interpreted, gentlemen, who have accumulated wealth by hiring other gentlemen to stick type for them.

January 18 Monday – Sam went to New York, where he spoke at the Typothetae Dinner at Delmonico’s. From Fatout:

January 17 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to George Henry Himes (1844-1940), about old Hannibal fellow printers Urban E. Hicks, Thomas P. (Pet) McMurray, and Wales R. McCormick. He thanked Himes for sending a text (unspecified) and mentioned he was to speak at the printers’ dinner in New York.