March 11 Sunday – Sam wrote from Boston to Livy while staying with Howells trying to collaborate on a play.
“We drop back, now to the original proposition—Howells to write the play, dropping in the skeleton of Orm’s speeches, I to take him, later, & fill him out. I expect to remain at Parker’s in Boston, tomorrow and return home Tuesday” [MTLE 2: 36].
March 10 Saturday – Sam and Howells “…perplexed ourselves all day…over plots & counter plots, & dreamed over them all night. Unsatisfactory” [MTLE 2: 36].
March 9 Friday – Charles Thomas Parsloe of Simmonds & Wall, Dramatic Agents, NYC, wrote to Sam:
March 8 Thursday – Edward P. Wilder, attorney wrote again to Sam, referring him to James J. Ferris, “a shipping master who has for five years led the fight agst. Duncan, & who is the author of the bill now before Congress…to repeal the Shipping Commissioner’s Act.” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env. “Duncan’s rascalities”. Ferris was U.S. Shipping Commissioner for many years prior to 1897.
March 3 Saturday – Edward P. Wilder, attorney, wrote a postcard from NYC to Sam that “absence from city has necessitated postponement of matter referred to in your last note” (not extant) [MTP].
March 1 Thursday – In New York, Bret Harte wrote a long argument to Sam, asserting his position with respect to Bliss and the American Publishing Co., Sam’s letter and the sending of Parsloe to San Francisco to study the Chinese character (which Harte called “simply preposterous”); and Sam’s offer of $25 per week to write another play with him—obviously an offer which Harte found insulting. The break between the two men was now final.
February 27 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to George W. McCrary (1835-1890), Secretary of War under Hayes from Mar. 12, 1877 to Dec. 11, 1879, enclosing a letter of Sam’s outlining reasons why the Seaman Support Law should be ended.
February 26 Monday – Howells had agreed to come for a visit, but his wife could not make the trip.
February 25 Sunday – The New York World published Sam’s last letter on Charles Duncan on page five [MTLE 2: 24]. Sam ended his blistering attack on a so-called “law for the protection of seamen,” which gave Duncan his position as Shipping Commissioner of New York:
February 22 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford, again to the editor of the New York World, with another lengthy diatribe against Charles C. Duncan. This letter ran on page five of the World for Feb. 25 [MTLE 2: 24-28].