October 14 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Pierre D. Peltier, declining an invite to dine with the Gate City Guard of Atlanta, Georgia, invited by the Putnam Phalanx, a Hartford military company.
October 13 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Frederick Schweppe, an Elmira decorator, a draft for $250 [MTLE 4: 113]. Livy had engaged Schweppe to redo the walls and ceilings in the Hartford, Farmington Avenue house [Willis 129].
October 10 Friday – Susan Crane gave this as the date the Clemens family left Quarry Farm. If so, they must have stayed with the Langdons in Elmira until Oct. 21 [Susan Crane to Paine, June 14, 1911, The Twainian, Nov.-Dec.1956 p.4].
October 9 Thursday – Sam had received Howells’ letter of Sept. 17, which called writing about Orion by “an alien hand” as heartless. Howells planned on traveling “northward and westward…either the first of October or the first of November” [MTHL 1: 270]. Sam responded that he’d intended to mark the religious squib “Private,” but forgot to. He then wrote a litany of Orion’s schemes and intentions he’d received in the past month.
October 6 Monday – In Toronto, Canada, Howells wrote to Sam. Howells was on a “very nice trip” to see his father.
Next week we are going on for a day at John Hay’s. Hay is deep in politics, and will probably go to Congress next year. I wish we could stop at Elmira, but we must go home the other way. We left the chicks at Belmont, and we’re in a hurry to get back to ‘em [MTHL 1: 272].
October 3 Friday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam, “The Fierce Yazoos” doggerel that he’d sent to several newspapers enclosed. He was again in financial straits and turned around about how to proceed [MTP].
October 2 Thursday – Sam wrote from Quarry Farm to Joe Twichell, who had recommended a Negro cook for the Clemens family. George Griffin was back in their employ, Sam wrote. Could Harmony Twichell recommend the candidate as a good cook? “Never mind her morals, is she a good cook?” Sam liked his new book (A Tramp Abroad) after much revision and cutting. “I cannot see that it lacks anything but information.”
October 1 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to John W. Sanborn, Indian culture expert. He complimented Sanborn on his “little book” which contained Indian ideas of creation, heaven and what Sam called the “odd coincidence” of immaculate conception [MTLE 4: 107] The book was likely Legends, customs and social life of the Seneca Indians, of western New York, by John Wentworth Sanborn, (“O-yo-ga-weh,”) (Clear Sky.) 1878.
September 29 Monday – John Wentworth Sanborn wrote to Clemens, thanking him for help in getting “unstuck” with the Scrap Book [MTP]. Note: letter exists in Sanborn’s 1920 book, Distinguished Authors Whom I have known, etc; See Jan. 24, 1878 from Sanborn.
Rev. Nathaniel J. Burton wrote from Hartford to Clemens recommending a “colored man” to take the place of George Griffin [MTP].
September 26 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Ainsworth Spofford, librarian of Congress for a copyright for A Tramp Abroad [MTLE 4: 105].