April 17 Monday – Sam left Hartford with 37-year-old Hartford schoolteacher Roswell Phelps, hired stenographer. Phelps was to take down Sam’s impressions of the trip, and also letters of Sam’s ongoing business matters [Kaplan 244]. The men were bound for St. Louis and the Mississippi River, where Sam’s decade-old dream (since at least Jan.
April – Sam’s notebook has an entry “Gillette ask Chas W Butler about Mrs. Bruner’s play—‘A Mad World’.” Butler was an actor [Gribben 107]. Sam also jotted notes about Mike Fink [229]. Also in his notebook: “War Diary of Gen. Geo. H. Gordon,” referring to A War Diary of Events in the War of the Great Rebellion (1882) [268]. Another entry reads, “Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason—Max Muller’s translation. Macmillan, N.Y.” [363].
March 10 Thursday – Sam gave a reading at the “African Church” (A.M.E. Zion Church, Pearl St., Hfd.) in Hartford. He included Uncle Remus’s “Tar Baby” (see Feb. 27 entry to Howells). Paine on Sam’s interactions with black folks:
The war years contributed to additional dramatic changes in city population. The Union Army's presence attracted many fugitive slaves who had escaped from surrounding rural plantations. So many sought protection behind Union lines that the Army set up contraband camps to accommodate them.
We reached St. Louis at ten o'clock at night. At the counter of the hotel I tendered a hurriedly-invented fictitious name, with a miserable attempt at careless ease. The clerk paused, and inspected me in the compassionate way in which one inspects a respectable person who is found in doubtful circumstances; then he said—
'It's all right; I know what sort of a room you want. Used to clerk at the St. James, in New York.'
March 9 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to A.V.S. Anthony.
“Please let the artist always picture the Prince & Tom Canty as lads of 13 or 14 years old. I knew I was making them too wise & knowing for their real age, so I studiously avoided mentioning any dates which would remind the reader that they were under 10 years old” [MTP].
March 8 Tuesday – Saloman & DeLeeuw, Hartford tobacco dealers, billed Sam $2.50 for corn cob pipes and Blackwell’s Durham tobacco; marked paid [MTP]
March 7 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James R. Osgood. Howells, in a Mar. 5 letter, passed along a suggestion from Mrs. Charles Fairchild, that Sam should write a burlesque book of etiquette. Howells made the case in language which he knew would appeal to Sam:
March 5 Saturday – In Boston, Howells wrote to Sam and declined to follow up on Leathers’ story.
I should think the American earl’s autobiography would be delightful; but I dread to have him put in possession of my name as that of one having anything to do with his MS. While he lived, I don’t see how I could use his history; and that kind of man survives everybody. Really, it seems to me that I can’t do anything about it; and if I can’t, I suppose you want your letters back [MTHL 1: 359].
March 4 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, enclosing a letter from Jesse M. Leathers, a distant relative of Sam’s on his mother’s side who claimed to be the “rightful earl of Durham.” Sam thought Leathers was a great source for literary grist: