November 1 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to unidentified persons:
“Dear Sirs: I think you have been ordering & paying for our several magazines, & charging to us in your usual bills. If so, please continue to do it & oblige” [MTP].
November – Sam, in Hartford, inscribed a copy of P&P to Ulysses S. Grant Jr (“Buck”): “To / U.S. Grant, Jr. / from / The Author. / ~ / Nov. ’85” [MTP].
October 30 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his mother, Jane Clemens.
October 29 Thursday – Charles Webster notified Sam that the proceeds of the notes had been received all right from Dunham. “I have offered Col Grant ½ profits on his book up to 50,000 and if it sold more than 50,000 to give him 60% of the profits. We can afford this and no more” [MTNJ 3: 204n69; MTP].
October 28 Wednesday – Samuel G. Dunham remitted the proceeds from Clemens’ $100,000 notes to Charles Webster, for the working capital to publish Grant’s Memoirs [MTNJ 3: 204n69].
Sam wrote from Hartford to his niece, Annie Webster, apologizing for not being able to stop for a visit with Livy the day before [MTP].
October 27 Tuesday – Livy shopped while Sam tried to finish business but failed to visit his niece, Annie. After stopping at Mrs. Grant’s, he could not see Charles Webster in time to catch his train. Livy was worn out (Sam wrote “she had the cholera morbus lately”). The trip went all wrong, Sam wrote, and he apologized for not calling [MTP].
October 26 Monday – Sam had returned to New York, this time with Livy [see Oct. 28 to Annie Webster]. He made a notebook entry that “Up to date, 320,000 sets of General Grant’s book have been subscribed for—that is to say, 640,000 single volumes” [MTNJ 3: 204]. He also noted seeing a play at the Metropolitan in New York.:
October 24 Saturday – Charles Webster wrote from New York to Sam in Hartford:
October 23 Friday – Joe Twichell wrote a short note, clipping enclosed “Aerial Navigation”: “Don’t you remember how one of us said, when we last walked to the Tower, speaking of aerial navigation, that the problem was bound to be solved sometime, because it was never given up, but there were always men at work on it. / The sight of the enclosed recalled the remark” [MTP]. Note: Steering a balloon had always been a challenge.
October 22 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster with the financial matters of the loan from Dunham, whom he did not name. Sam repeated that since he’d made himself personally liable for the notes, Webster needed to fully insure the books, both finished and unfinished.
“I mean, get all the insurance you can on them” [MTP].