October 25, 1879 Saturday

October 25 Saturday – Richard Stanley Tuthill (1841-1920) wrote from Chicago, on The Illinois Club notepaper to invite Sam to the annual meeting of the Army of Tennessee Nov. 12-13. Would Sam agree to be on the program? [MTP]. Note: he did agree and gave the famous “Babies” speech.

October 24, 1879 Friday

October 24 Friday  After a seventeen month absence, the Clemens family returned home to Hartford and their Farmington Avenue house [MTLE 4: 111, 115]. From Twichell’s journal:

“Dear Mark Twain and his family are home again. We called on them in the evening. It seems only yesterday that we parted in Switzerland” [Yale, copy at MTP].

October 21, 1879 Tuesday 

October 21 Tuesday  The Clemens family left Elmira and Quarry Farm and went to New York, staying a day or two before leaving for Hartford [MTLE 4: 111]. NoteSusan Crane in a 1911 letter to Paine gave the date the Clemens family left Quarry Farm as Oct.

October 17, 1879 Friday 

October 17 Friday  Sam’s article “Our Georgia Visitors” ran in the Hartford Courant [Camfield, bibliog.].

C. Jensen, custom officer wrote from Stubbekøbing, Denmark to ask for an autograph [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Preserve this remarkable letter”; though English is clearly not the writer’s first language, nothing explains Twain’s envelope comment.

October 15, 1879 Wednesday

October 15 Wednesday – C.H. Brainard wrote from Boston to Sam, enclosing a photo of a bust of Whittier by Preston Powers, Florence, Italy. Brainard solicited Sam for a contribution to place the bust (cost $900) in the Boston Public Library [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Whittier photo”.

October 10, 1879 Friday 

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, 1911The Twainian, Nov.-Dec.1956 p.4].

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