Day By Day Dates

June 5 Friday –  Owen S. McKinney  wrote to Sam. This is what the  MTP calls a “ghost letter,” being referred to somewhere but with no known text. It’s possible this will surface in time [MTP].

Mitchell, Vance & Co. wrote from NYC to advertise their “large stock” of gas fixtures [MTP].

June 6 Saturday – Case & Rathbun wrote to Sam: “Your telegram duly rec’d, also to-day, order for shirts [half dozen] with slight changes, and order for 200 cigars which we send to-day by express” [MTP].

June 8 Monday – At 7 AM, Livy gave birth to Clara Langdon Clemens, their second daughter, named after Livy’s friend, Clara Spaulding. The baby weighed nearly eight pounds, “which is colossal for Livy,” Sam wrote on June 10 to Orion and Mollie [MTL 6: 155].

June 9 Tuesday – Sam paid a June 5 bill of $8.40 from Scribner, Welford & Armstrong of New York for William Harris Rule’s two-volume work, History of the Inquisition from Its Establishment in the Twelfth Century to Its Extinction in the Nineteenth [Gribben 593].

June 10 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Orion and Mollie. He told them of Clara’s birth; Livy was doing “amazingly well—is cheerful, happy, grateful & strong.” Sam wrote of firing his coachman, Downey, and hiring Patrick McAleer, who was “straight” (sober) because his wife kept him so.

June 11 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to the Twichells.

“The baby is here & is the great American Giantess—weighing 7¾ pounds, & all solid meat….It is an admirable child, though, & has intellect. It puts its fingers against its brow & thinks.”

Sam then described what became a famous structure, now at Elmira College:

June 12 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Will Bowen about plans for the new house. Only a fragment survives [Hornberger, 33].

June 13 Saturday – From Charles E. Perkins’ cash book, Sam’s account: “To po Garvie  1200.00” [Berg collection, NYPL]. Note: likely John Garvie. See other listings for Garvie.

June 14 Sunday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam and Livy. Letter enclosed in June 18 from Mollie Clemens—both congratulating them on the birth of a daughter [MTP].

June 15 Monday – Sam wrote the good news from Elmira to Dr. John Brown:

“We call the new Megatherium (mate to the Megalopis) Clara of course” [MTL 6: 159].  

June 16 Tuesday – Sam wrote to the editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser about misdirected mail from England. Letters from Dr. John Brown had been addressed to him in “Hartford, State of New York, US” and returned to Scotland; another to, “Hartford, Near Boston, New York, US of A.” This one did reach him. Sam wanted to know:

June 17 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Orion, responding to a letter with a sample of coal Orion had found. Sam had shown the sample to Theodore Crane, who was a partner in J. Langdon & Co. Crane wasn’t impressed and Sam gave his brother good advice [MTL 6: 164]. Sam was resigned to Orion being “bound to find a butterfly to chase.”

June 18 Thursday – Mollie Clemens wrote to Sam and Livy, and enclosed Orion’s June 14 [MTP].

June 20 Saturday – Edmund Routledge wrote from London to Sam having just rec’d and read of Mark Twain’s Sketches. Number One. He was sorry Sam might forfeit copyright in England on these and talked of buying cuts from the book [MTP].

June 21 Sunday – Sam wrote from Elmira to William Dean Howells. Sam sent compliments on Howells’ third novel, A Foregone Conclusion, which appeared in the July Atlantic Monthly.

“The new baby is a gaudy thing & the mother is already sitting up” [MTL 6: 165].

June 23 Tuesday – Sam’s “A Postal Case” was published in the Boston Daily Advertiser [MTL 6: 163n4].

Anna E. Dickinson wrote to Sam

Dear Mr. Clemmens, [sic]—I hope you are so well & happy that to tax yourself in behalf of some one, who has no earthly claim on you, will seem no very serious matter.

June 24 Wednesday – Sam wrote to an unidentified person that the “Mark Twain” nom de plume was one used by Captain Isaiah Sellers, and that Sam used it after Sellers died [MTL 6: 166]. Note: The trouble with that explanation is that Sellers died a year later (1864) than Sam adopted the name, and that no record can be found where Sellers ever used the handle for his river news as Sam claimed.

June 25 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to the editor of the New York Evening Post. Sam denied he was writing a book on English manners and customs [MTL 6: 167]. Sam’s reception in England was so overwhelmingly classy and positive, that he no doubt found it impossible to poke fun at the English. Maybe he simply hadn’t stuck around long enough.

June 26 Friday – From Charles E. Perkins’ cash book, Sam’s account: “By cash brot over June 26  By dft on NY  5000.00; To po Garvie 2500.00” [Berg collection, NYPL]. Note: drawing from New York bank and paying part to William and/or Robert Garvie in Hartford on construction costs.

June 28 Sunday – Sam replied from Elmira to the June 23 of Anna E. Dickinson, who was going abroad and had asked for letters of introduction to his friends. Sam sent introductory letters off to Frank Finlay, editor Northern Whig, Belfast; Dr. John Brown, Edinburgh, Rev. George MacDonald, London; and Sir Thomas & Lady Hardy, London.

June 29 Monday – Sam left for a quick trip to Hartford, primarily to inspect the progress of the new house. He first went to New York City, where he stayed at the St. Nicholas Hotel for two and possibly three nights before traveling on to Hartford. Sam probably spent time with John Hay and William A. Seaver, whom he’d promised to visit.

June 30 Tuesday – In Newport, Vermont, on the way to get his father settled as American consul at Quebec, William Dean Howells wrote between connections to Sam:

July 1 Wednesday – Livy wrote to her husband of the domestic scene at Quarry Farm.

Darling Youth—

Did you send the money for our gas bill to Mary Burton? If you see her will you tell her that we shall probably not want the carriage for Susie—

July 2 or 3 Friday – Sam wrote a note on the front flyleaf of The Gilded Age, which he presented to William Seaver: “To friend Seaver / from / Mark / Hartford, July ’74 / Some of my errors in this book would have been simply outrageous, but Warner criticised them faithfully & so I re-wrote 200 pages of my MS & cooled the absurdities down to a reasonable temperature. / S.L.C.” [MTL 6: 172].

July 3 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy. He rhapsodized about the new house, how the house and barn seem to have grown up “out of the ground…part & parcel of Nature’s handiwork.” So far Livy had spent $47,000 through Perkins, for the building of the unique home [MTL 6: 173].

From Charles E. Perkins’ cash book, Sam’s account: “To po Insurance 60” [Berg collection, NYPL].