Day By Day Dates

May 29 Wednesday – Sam, Livy and babies arrived home in Hartford. Sam had telegraphed ahead for Dr. Cincinnatus A. Taft (1822-1884) to be at the house for Langdon [MTL 5: 97]

June – William Dean Howells published a glowing review of Roughing It for the June issue of the Atlantic.

Probably an encyclopedia could not be constructed from the book; the work of a human being, it is not unbrokenly nor infallibly funny; nor is it to be always praised for all the literary virtues; but it is singularly entertaining, and its humor is always amiable, manly, and generous.

June 1 Saturday – Langdon Clemens, age 19 months, was diagnosed with diphtheria [MTL 5: 98].

June 2 Sunday – Langdon Clemens, Sam’s only son, died in his mother’s arms [MTL 5: 98; Kaplan 150]. Sam blamed himself for not noticing the baby had been uncovered in an April carriage ride. Sam always blamed himself in some way for deaths that visited the family. He kept the carriage ride to himself until his autobiographical dictation in 1906.

June 3 Monday – The Cranes arrived in Hartford at noon to take the body of Langdon back to be buried in the Langdon plot in Elmira. Livy was in no shape to travel, and could not leave Susy. Sam could not leave Livy, so they stayed in Hartford [MTL 5: 100].

June 4 Tuesday – After a “short simple service” in Hartford, Susan and Theodore Crane, left Hartford at 8 PM, taking the body of Langdon to Elmira [MTL 5: 100].

Bill dated May 14 paid to D.S. Brooks & Sons, Hartford for a grate, $1.25 [MTP].

June 5 Wednesday – The Cranes arrived in Elmira while it was still daylight. As the sun set, Langdon Clemens was buried in the Langdon plot, Woodlawn Cemetery, close to his grandfather Jervis Langdon [MTL 5: 100]. A death mask of the child was made, which Livy placed in her keepsake box. Sam later had a bust made from the mask.

June 10 Monday – Bill paid to Horace C. Deming, flour & grain dealer, for two bales hay, 100 lbs meal, six buckets oats $11.15 [MTP].

June 11 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Adolph H. Sutro, a mutual friend of John Henry Riley’s. Sam had heard from Sutro about Riley’s failing health, but due to Langdon’s death and Livy’s condition, Sam had mot been able to get away. Sutro had sent Riley $100 and visited him. Since Sam could not visit, he also sent $100 [MTL 5: 101].

June 13 Thursday – Bret Harte traveled to Hartford and spent the night with the Clemenses. In 1907 Sam claimed that Harte was broke, borrowed $500 and “employed the rest of his visit in delivering himself of sparkling sarcasms about our house, our furniture, and the rest of our domestic arrangements” [MTL 5: 105n2].

June 15 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to William Dean Howells. Sam enclosed a newspaper portrait of himself and begged for a portrait of Howells that appeared in Hearth & Home. He added that 62,000 copies of Roughing It had been sold and delivered in four months [MTL 5: 102-3].

June 17 Monday – Bret Harte wrote from NYC to thank Sam for his concern. He added: “I liked Slote greatly. He is very sweet, sensible and sincere. I think he is truly ‘white’ as you say, or quite ‘candid’ as Mr Lowell would say in his Latin-English. / I enclose your diamond stud, wh. I wore in the cars. …Let me hear from you about Bliss. Tell Mrs. Clemens I deputize you to kiss the baby for me…” [MTP].

June 18 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Louise Chandler Moulton. Sam thanked the Boston correspondent for the New York Tribune, for her kind review of Roughing It and her sympathies for his “irreparable loss” [MTL 5: 108].

June 21 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Joseph L. Blamire, NY agent for George Routledge & Sons publishers. Sam made 400 revisions to a copy of Innocents Abroad, in attempt to make the book more palatable to English tastes. He wrote that he expected to be in New York the next Wednesday, staying with Dan Slote.

June 22 Saturday – Sam signed a new contract with Elisha Bliss, superceding his 1870 contract which called for the African diamond mine book. The new contract gave Sam his ten percent royalty, thus solving the problem he’d had with Roughing It. The contract was not fulfilled until 1879, when Sam and Bliss agreed that The Adventures of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) would be used to satisfy the contract [MTL 5: 101-2].

June 23 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Joseph L. Blamire, enclosing the preface for Innocents Abroad, which Routledge would publish in two volumes [MTL 5: 110].

June 24 Monday – Sam receipted $5,000 advance from Elisha Bliss for copyright on Roughing It [MTP].

June 26 Wednesday – Date of letter to Sam from J. Langdon & Co. with statement of Livy’s account and enclosed check for $1,018.18 [MTP].

June 27 Thursday – John Henry Riley wrote from Phila. to Sam: “Friend Clemens / My dear fellow, Are you going to make an effort to come and see me?…I may hold on for a month or so, (who knows?) and I may go off any night.” He was dying of cancer [MTP].

June 30 Sunday – Sam arrived in New York and stayed at the St. Nicholas Hotel. He may have gone to Boston during this week to attend the Boston World’s Peace Jubilee and International Music Festival. James R. Osgood & Co. was a major underwriter of the Jubilee.

July – Sam’s sketch “Mark Twain at the Grave of Adam” (Innocents Abroad, Ch. 53) ran in American Publishing Co.’s in-house promotional monthly, American Publisher [Camfield, bibliog.].

July 1 Monday – Bill paid to The Farmington Creamery Co., $10.80, for purchases/deliveries made June 11, 14, 21, 28. Also, bill paid to Drs. Taft & Starr for professional services for period Jan. 1, ’72 to July 1, ’72. $67.82 paid to E.D. Roberts for one “No. 4 Extension Top ‘Peerless’” and parts [MTP].

July 2 Tuesday – Bill paid for James Ahern, Practical Plumber and Gas Fitter, 272 Main St. Hartford for work done Apr. 12, May 18, 21, 29, and June 13; total 17 man hours work, $15.76.

Sam send an engraved card in script font to an unknown man:

Dear Sir:

      I thank you for the compliment of the invitation, but am compelled to decline, since my lecture has permanently closed.

Yours truly,

July 3 Wednesday – Bill paid to McNary & Co., chemists and druggists Hartford 246 Main St. for “3 doz Scotch ale $9” [MTP].

July 4 Thursday – During Sam’s last day in New York, over an inch of rain fell [NOAA.Gov].