Day By Day Dates

September 13 Wednesday – Pamela Moffett wrote from Quincy, Ill. To thank him for his “kind and generous forethought”—they’d had a “very comfortable journey.” She’d just received a draft for $1,900 from the sale of the Independent Watch Co. stock. “I feel very grateful to every body who had a share in getting me out of this scrape,” especially Sam and also Charles Webster [MTP].

September 14 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to answer the Sept. 11 request from David L. Grasmere, asking for a note from Sam.

September 15 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James R. Osgood, mailing him another chapter of LM.

“Book nearly done, now. Is mainly in the hands of the copyist. Will send you the seven (reprint) chapters, revised and corrected presently—the ones first illustrated by the artist…so you can hurry up your canvassing specimen” [MTP]. 

September 16 Saturday – James R. Osgood wrote to Sam: “Your letter of yesterday is received, with the accompanying MS. chapters of the book and the package of ‘Every Saturday’.” / We send you by Adams Ex. a package from Mr. Clarke, containing bill of complaint (in duplicate) in the Belford, Clark & Co. case …” [MTP]. Note: Thomas W. Clarke, attorney.

September 17 Sunday – Sam also wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, about a watch chain ordered from Tiffany & Co. that had not arrived in Elmira. Sam enclosed the letter from a Tiffany employee and wrote that he “got the watch chain at last, some 13 hours quicker than I could have got it by the canal” [MTP].

September 18 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James R. Osgood, upon his return from a European vacation. Sam was struggling with the Mississippi book.

Welcome home! I have been half dead with malaria ever since you left; and these last few days am two-thirds dead. I work all the time, but accomplish very little—sometimes as little as 200 words in 5 hours.

September 19 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, upset about material bearing his name published by J.S. Ogilvie & Co. that he had not written.

“Dear Charley—I want Messrs. Alexander & Green to go for these people at once & lively, on some charge or other. They are using my name to sell stuff which I never wrote. I would not be the author of that witless stuff (Bad Boy’s Diary) for a million dollars” [MTBus 197].

September 20 Wednesday – Sam often wrote notes about what he called “mental telegraphy,” thinking about a person from years ago right before their letter arrived, or as in Twichell’s case in Germany, turning a corner and meeting a man from years before he’d just been talking about. Sam’s notebook:

“Livy says ‘I have no memory.’ My own thought but about myself last night” [MTNJ 2: 505].

September 21 Thursday – Sam telegraphed from Elmira to Charles Webster that he’d received his letter, the result was “convincing” and to “Do with that stuff as your Judgement directs” [MTP].

September 22 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles S. Fairchild.

Arrived last night, & shall leave again to-day to bring the family home next week.

September 23 Saturday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, again about the J.S. Ogilvie “bastards”.

September 24 Sunday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster about settling for royalties owed him by the Sheldon & Co.; Osgood’s return to New York; and the Slote matter of the $5,000 “loan” which was still being settled, probably from his estate.

September 25 Monday – Karl & Hattie J. Gerhardt wrote to Sam and Livy, having just read a half column in the NY Times about Clemens’ summer home. Discussion of visits to Abbott Thayer and Augustus Saint-Gaudens [MTP].

Silas M. Tellone, Louisville, wrote asking for a letter from Mark Twain [MTP].

September 26 Tuesday – Page Mercer Baker for New Orleans Times-Democrat wrote, sending the article that Sam had asked for in his Sept. 22 letter. He spoke of the “evening we spent at Johns—the good stories over the wine, the music (in which Cables thin but melodious tenor mingled sweetly with Burthes magnificent baritone)…etc.” [MTP]. Note: the evening was May 2; see entry.

September 27 Wednesday – Charles Webster wrote: “In regard to Ogilvie we are getting out an injunction, bringing a civil suit against them for damages for using your trade mark and signing it to ‘stuff’ you never wrote. Then, we are trying to get a criminal indictment against them before the grand jury” [MTP].

September 28 Thursday – The Clemens family left Elmira and traveled to New York for their eventual return to Hartford. The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western depot was in Hoboken, New Jersey; passengers had to ferry from Hoboken to New York. Sam registered the family at the Brunswick Hotel in New York.

September 29 Friday – Sam wrote from the editorial department of the Century Magazine, Union Square, New York to George W. Cable.

September 30 Saturday – Sam began a long letter from Hartford to Karl and Hattie Gerhardt whose expenditures in Paris, France had been increasing beyond Sam’s original pledge of $3,000 support for Karl’s three-year schooling [MTNJ 2: 506].

James R. Osgood per W. Rowland wrote a package from A.V.S. Anthony and acknowledged another installment rec’d from Sam’s MS [MTP].

October 1 Sunday – Sam completed the letter, full of estimates, calculations and budgets he began Sept. 30 to Karl Gerhardt. He wrote they “just had our first brief glimpse of Twichell,” who returned from a three-month trip to Europe. Twichell had visited the Gerhardts in Paris.

October 2 Monday – William F. Smith wrote from Chatham, England asking Sam’s opinion on a small book sent, that he said was “stillborn” [MTP].

Charles Webster wrote that he had a large safe in Fredonia, and on the way to Chicago he’d have it sent down, which would save Sam from buying one [MTP].

October 3 Tuesday – Sam wrote a long letter from Hartford to Charles Webster, explaining agreements past and actions taken with Slote & Co. about payments on scrapbook sales [MTBus 201-3].

October 4 Wednesday – Kate D. Barstow wrote from Wash. DC to Sam that her son Joe died on the 11th from diphtheria and her fear that it would spread to her other children. Lectures at Howard Univ. “begin this week…Please send me forty dollars” [MTP].

October 5 Thursday – In Hartford, Sam typed a letter to George W. Cable, asking if he’d received the note he sent from the Century office on Sept. 29. Sam repeated the invitation to visit:

“IF YOU CAN STAY THE LONGER BY COMING NOW, COME NOW; BUT IF YOU CAN STAY THE LONGER BY COMING LATER, COME LATER” [MTP].

October 6 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster, who evidently was going to Chicago on the Ogilvie matter for Sam.

October 7 Saturday – Alexander & Green advised the court had granted a preliminary injunction against J.S. Ogilvie & Co., The New York News Co. Ogilvie’s defense was that he’d republished from newspaper clippings [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Trade-mark suit against Ogilvie & Co. They ‘holler.’ ”

Charles Webster wrote: