February 13 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Mary Mason Fairbanks, apologizing for not being able to visit during his “most detestable lecture campaign that ever was—a campaign which was one eternal worry with contriving new lectures & being dissatisfied with them.” Sam liked yanking the chains of his favorite females. “I killed a man this morning.
February 10 Saturday – Sam had returned to Hartford and purchased a pair of “patent Congress Gaiters” from Caspar Kreuzer, a boot maker there [MTL 5: 41].
February 6 Tuesday – Bill paid to W.B. Willard, flour & grain merchant $8.50 for grain & oats [MTP].
February 5–10 Saturday – Before he left New York Sam may have met the medium James Vincent Mansfield, seeking contact with his dead brother Henry Clemens. Sam wrote about the visit some ten years later in chapter 48 of Life on the Mississippi. Sam’s sometimes interest in spiritualism often resulted in lampoons of them [MTL 5: 41-3].
February 4 Sunday – Greeley’s birthday party ended at around midnight. Sam stayed in New York overnight at the St. Nicholas Hotel. Sam probably returned to Hartford after a day or two, but his whereabouts and activities aren’t known until Feb. 10, when he was in Hartford.
February 3 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Alvin J. Johnson (1827-1884), who had invited him to the 61st birthday celebration that evening for Horace Greeley in New York City. Johnson was a publisher and a close friend of Greeley’s.
February 2 Friday – Sam and Livy celebrated their second wedding anniversary.
Bill from Whittlesey & Bliss, grocers, terms net cash, marked paid $19.38 for tubs of butter [MTP].
February 1 Thursday – Sam lectured to a “jammed” house in Rand’s Hall, Troy, New York – “Roughing It.” George Routledge paid Sam a token amount ($185) for the right to publish Roughing It simultaneously in England [MTL 5: 73n3].
Sam left for Hartford.
February – Sam’s article “Dollinger the Age[d] Pilot Man” ran in American Publishing Co.’s in-house promotional monthly, American Publisher [Camfield, bibliog.]. See Roughing It, Ch. 51.
January 31 Wednesday – Sam again took a ferry and lectured in Opera House, Paterson, New Jersey – “Roughing It” [MTPO]. Sam probably spent the night at Paterson’s Franklin House Hotel [MTL 5: 39].
Bill paid to Whiton & Gilletto $15 for 1&1/2 cord oak wood [MTP].