Day By Day Dates

February 28 Friday – Sam again wrote from Hartford to Bliss about his “infatuation” with writing The Gilded Age and his intent to have the book published simultaneously in England and America. Living there for a time would solve the legal question of the English residency requirement for copyright [MTL 5: 302].

March – Sometime during the month, Sam wrote from Hartford to Louisa I. Conrad, a neighbor in St. Louis in 1867. Sam’s letter is a humorous “RECIPE FOR MAKING A SCRAPBOOK” [MTL 5: 303].

March 1 Saturday – A receipt with this date from the Asylum Congregational Society for $155. The document is a form letter for rent of slip no. 167 [number written in] for one year from date [MTP]. Notes: Annual pew fees were a common way for churches to raise revenue. It was a similar purchase of $25 by Orion that would raise Sam’s ire in two years (see July 26, 1875 entry).

March 3 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Willard M. White (1843-1923) who had asked for help in promoting the invention of a mosquito net frame that attached to a bed.

March 4 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Elisha Bliss. Sam wanted Nast to illustrate the next book, The Gilded Age. He asked Bliss’ advice on the matter and a suggested price to offer Nast.

March 7 Friday – Sam, in Hartford, telegraphed and also wrote a short note with enclosure to Whitelaw Reid of the New York Tribune. Sam wrote about the convicted murderer William Foster and then changed his mind and asked Reid to “tear this stuff up” [MTL 5: 310-11]. Still, the article was published in the Tribune on Mar. 10.

March 8 Saturday – Budd gives this date for the first printing of Sam’s, “Poor Little Stephen Girard” In Alta California [Collected 1014]. California Digital Newspaper Collection online, however, shows as Mar. 11. [http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cdnc]. Note: previously in error as 1872. Sometimes reprinted as, “Life As I Find It.”

March 10 Monday –Sam wrote from Hartford to Tom Hood and George Routledge & Sons in London. Sam wrote about the Jubilee Singers, who were about to appear in London. He had heard the singers once, probably on Jan. 28, 1872 when they came to Twichell’s church. He would hear them twice more in his next visit to England.

March 11 Tuesday – Bill paid to Geo. W. Ford 395 Main St. Hartford; for 12 fire extinguishers charged $12 [MTP].

March 18 Tuesday – Bill and receipt for $3 to Hawley & Goodrich & Co. for lost pocketbook [MTP].

March 19 Wednesday – Susy Clemens’ first birthday.

March 20 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Will Bowen, who had sent Sam an article about polar currents from Silas Bent, an oceanographer and formal naval officer. Sam thanked Will, and also explained his wife would not let him lecture anywhere.

“We sail for England May 17 & return in October—meantime we hope the most aggravating part of the house will be built & off our minds” [MTL 5: 320].

March 21 Friday – Sam paid $3 to Hawley, Goodrich & Co. for special notebooks of his design [MTP].

March 22 Saturday – Sam purchased a small wedge of land along the eastern side of their lot and 40 feet on the south for $1,000, which increased his frontage on Farmington Avenue by twenty feet [MTL 5: 271n6; Salsbury 17].

March 24 Monday – Bill for glass paid to Chas. Wright & Co., Hartford, $21.43 [MTP].

March 26 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Elisha Bliss, vowing to finish The Gilded Age before leaving for England in May. Sam enclosed a letter from William Gouverneur Morris (1832-1884), who had approached Sam about publishing a book.

March 28 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Will Bowen, sending Routledge’s London address for Will to write [MTL 5: 323].

March 29 Saturday – Sam’s article “Making a Fortune,” appeared in the Jackson, California Amador Dispatch. As the “Moralist of the Main”, Sam could make his points about an issue by standing the moral order on its head. This was a funny sketch about a bank watchman robbing a bank of a million dollars, then refusing offers to return half and living on as an honored and respected man and a lesson that “even the poor may rise to affluence and respectability” [Fatout, MT Speaks 78].

March 30 Sunday – Sam wrote from Hartford to the editor of the Hartford Courant, a fictitious tale about a family drowning in construction mud on Forest Avenue.

“There was a heavy sea on by this time, of mud & water mixed, & every third colossal poultice of it that rolled along made a clean breach over the wagon & left the occupants looking like the original Adam before the clay dried” [MTL 5: 325-8].

March 31 Monday – Sam read his first essay for the Hartford Monday Evening Club entitled “License of the Press” [Budd,“Collected” 1014]. Sam said, “The touchy Charles Reade can sue English newspapers and get verdicts; he would soon change his tactics here” [Gribben 572].

Sam’s article, “A Horrible Tale – Fearful Calamity in Forest Street” ran in the Hartford Courant [Camfield, bibliog.].

April – Vol. 1, No.1 , p.6-7 of The Globe, a literary magazine in Buffalo, N.Y. published by E.L. Cornwell, ran an article just short of two pages, “Mark Twain as a Buffalo Editor” that was rather critical of Sam’s time in that city, some three years before. 

April 2 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles F. Wingate (1848-1909), correspondent for the Boston Globe and the Springfield Republican. Sam responded to Wingate’s question as to Sam’s availability, probably for an interview, and Sam told him his plans were uncertain when he’d be in New York, but he would stay at the St.

April 5-15? Tuesday – William C. Cornwell (1851-1932) sent an unsigned article and asked Sam to respond. Cornwell was a banker temporarily turned journalist. Sam answered from Hartford:

April 6 Sunday – In Virginia City, Joe Goodman wrote to Sam:

April 7–11 Friday – Captain Mouland of the Batavia visited Sam sometime between these dates. It was his second visit [MTL 5: 279n6]. In a letter of Apr. 26 to Colton Greene, a passenger on the Batavia during the rescue at sea, Sam described Mouland’s visit: