November 7 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Will Bowen. Will’s wife of sixteen years had died and Sam had received the news in London. He told Will of his plan to start back to New York the next day, and invited Will to visit them in Hartford after their home was done in May. “We will talk over old times and tell my wife about them” [MTL 5: 472].
November 6 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Jane Clemens with a proposition for Orion, who had been struggling to find work in New York. If Orion would stay in Fredonia but not live under the same roof with his mother, and sister, then Sam would pay him up to twenty dollars a week pension, as long as he is idle or can make no more than ten dollars a week on his own.
November 5 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Elisha Bliss directing books be sent to personal friends and journalists in London, Edinburgh, Ireland, France, and various places in America—two dozen or so. Among this list were Sam’s old friends in Nevada, Chicago and San Francisco, as well as those he had made acquaintance with in England.
November 4 Tuesday – The Clemens family returned to Hartford with Mrs. Langdon, who planned to visit there a few days [MTL 5: 461].
November 3 Monday – The Clemens family attended Edwin Booth’s NY performance of Hamlet [MTL 5: 460]. Note: Booth (1833-1893). Paine [MTB 495] attributes to Orion a detail not in his letter to Mollie:
The Windsor Hotel was located at 575 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of East 47th Street) in Manhattan, New York.
November 2 Sunday – The Batavia reached port in New York City at dusk. Livy’s mother and brother, and also Orion (who was in the city looking for work) met the Clemens family at the pier. Charles Langdon had reserved rooms at the new Windsor Hotel, where the party spent the night.
October 30 Thursday – Sam wrote on board the Batavia to Dr. John Brown. Everyone in Sam’s party save himself had been seasick for the first three days, but now it had been:
“…smoothe, & balmy, & sunny & altogether lovely for a day or two now, & at night there is a broad luminous highway stretching over the sea to the moon, over which the spirits of the sea are traveling up & down all through the secret night & having a genuine good time, I make no doubt.”
October 22 Wednesday – Sam sent a note of thanks for books to an unidentified person. Sam dispatched the letter at Queenstown, Ireland [MTL 5: 458].
October 21 Tuesday – Sam, family and party sailed from Liverpool for New York on the SS. Batavia [MTL 5: 451n1]. Sam had not received any proofs of The Gilded Age, but Livy’s homesickness (she was also pregnant again) led Sam to escort the family home and then to return for more lectures and to await the proofs in order to claim copyright.