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].
January 30 Tuesday – Sam lectured in The Tabernacle, Jersey City, New Jersey – “Roughing It.” Sam had become used to introducing himself, and played it up for all the humor it offered. He often related the true story about a man out West who’d been forced to introduce him: “I don’t know anything about this man except two things, one is, he has never been in the penitentiary, and the other is, I don’t know the reason why” [MTL 5: 38].
January 29 Monday – Sam lectured in Klein’s Opera House, Scranton, Pa. – “Roughing It” [MTPO].
January 28 Sunday – The Jubilee Singers, touring for Fisk University in Nashville, performed at the Asylum Hill Church in Hartford to a nearly full house. It’s likely that Sam attended [MTL 5: 37, p316n2]. Note: the church had 186 pews, seating 930 people [Strong 49].
January 27 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to James Redpath, nixing lectures in New York, Englewood, New Jersey, Danbury, Conn., but agreeing to Amherst, Mass.
“Thank God it is nearly over. I haven’t a cent to show for all this long campaign. Squandered it thoughtlessly paying debts” [MTL 5: 36]. Note: Sam did lecture in Danbury on Feb. 21.
January 26 Friday – F.W. Farwell wrote from NYC advertising the Babcock Fire Extinguisher [MTP].
Thomas B. Pugh wrote from Phila. to Sam, regretting Sam could not lecture in Phila again this season [MTP].