January 5 Friday – Sam lectured in Opera House, Columbus, Ohio – “Roughing It” [MTPO].
A receipt from John Hooker for $100 for “house rent in full” is likely for one month, since later receipts for Hooker’s Nook Farm rent were $300 per quarter. Bill paid to E. Habenstein, baker for Livy, products not legible [MTP].
January 4 Thursday – Sam arrived in Dayton, Ohio and stayed at the Beckel House, Room 169. In the evening he lectured “Roughing It” to a full house in the Music Hall. He wrote John Henry Riley about plans for the diamond book, thinking that he’d be ready to start the collaboration around the first week in March [MTL 5: 2-3].
Friend Riley—
Heaven prosper the Minister to S. A! Amen.
January 3 Wednesday – Sam lectured in Richmond, Indiana – “Roughing It.” He also wrote his mother, Jane Clemens:
Dear Mother—Enclosed find checks for three hundred dollars. Please drop Livy a line acknowledging receipt of them, & tell her to let me know right away.
January 2 Tuesday – Sam lectured in Opera House, Logansport, Indiana – “Roughing It.” Before the lecture he wrote from Logansport to James Redpath.
“Had a splendid time with a splendid audience in Indianapolis last night—a perfectly jammed house….I like the new lecture but I hate the ‘Artemus Ward’ talk & won’t talk it any more. No man ever approved that choice of subject in my hearing, I think” [MTL 5: 1].
January 1 Monday – Sam arrived in the evening to lecture in Association Hall, Indianapolis, Indiana – “Roughing It in Nevada” [Schmidt].
Sam was billed $21 by Hartford Drs. Taft & Starr for “professional services from July 1, 1871 to Jan 1 1872” [MTP].
January – Sam’s article “A Nabob’s Visit to New York” ran in American Publishing Co.’s in-house promotional monthly, American Publisher [Camfield, bibliog.]. See Roughing It, Ch. 46.
December 31 Sunday – In a “warm drizzling rain,” Sam went to church in Paris, Illinois, and wrote of the experience in a long letter to Livy.
“It was the West & boyhood brought back again, vividly. It was as if twenty-five years had fallen away from me like a garment & I was a lad of eleven again in my Missouri village church of that ancient time” [MTL 4: 527].
December 30 Saturday – Sam lectured in Paris, Illinois – Topic was probably “Artemus Ward.”
December 29 Friday – Sam lectured in Mattoon, Illinois – Topic was probably “Artemus Ward.” The hall in Mattoon had a hall above it used by a secret order. During the lecture noise frequently came from above, disturbing Clemens. Before the close of the lecture Twain said he’d lectured in schools, churches and theaters but had never lectured in a livery stable where they kept horses overhead [“Editor’s Drawer,” Harper’s Monthly 70 (Apr. 1885): 822].
December 28 Thursday – Sam lectured in Lincoln Hall, Danville, Illinois – “Roughing It.”
He wrote from Danville to Livy, concerned about her health and the baby’s. He announced, “The debt to the firm is all paid up” (the $12,500 owned to Jervis Langdon on the purchase of the Buffalo Express.) [MTL 4: 526-7].