Day By Day Dates

November 17 Friday – Sam and Livy joined Joe and Harmony Twichell and Harriet Beecher Stowe at a dinner in honor of George P. Lathrop, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s son-in-law. From Twichell’s journals:

“…pleasure of hearing Mrs. Stowe talk. She was in the mood for it, and struck a reminiscent strain having much to say of the old anti-slavery days. We were conscious of a great reverence toward her” [Andrews 87].

November 18 Saturday – Sam typed a response from Hartford to Orion, offering a familiar condescending tone about Orion’s latest idea for speculation, a local electric company. Sam was also “full of devilish irritation besides, on account of ….inability to work steadily” and to his satisfaction on LM [MTP].

Sam also inscribed The Stolen White Elephant to Harriet E. Whitmore:

November 21 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster about cleaning up loose ends with Sam’s ex-lawyer, Charles Perkins.

“About Christmas you may go to Mr. Perkins & get all documents & everything connected with my business—so that Mr. Perkins’s salary can stop with the year.

November 22 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster asking him to come up from New York City “on a matter of business here upon which” he wanted Webster’s advice [MTP].

November 23 Thursday – Pamela Moffett wrote in a tiny hand on a tiny card from Oakland, Calif. where she had gone for her health and to see her son Samuel. She thanked Clemens for sending a signed book to the Schroeters, and talked about her son’s progress in farming there [MTP]. Note: also seen as “Schroter”.

November 24 Friday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam, all about the company he wanted to start dealing with electric lights [MTP].

November 25 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Charles Webster. After referring angrily to and enclosing another bill from the plumber Ahern, Sam wrote about a land matter in Archer County, Texas. It seems Livy had loaned money to a woman, and the woman’s husband had let the taxes fall delinquent.

November 27 Monday – Livy’s 37th birthday.

Hjalmar Boyesen wrote a card from NYC, asking if he’d sign his name on two copies of P&P, which he was sending in a day or two [MTP].

Mary Keily wrote another “lunatic” letter from Lancaster Insane Asylum, Penn. [MTP].

November 28 Tuesday – Edward W. Bok, the pesky teen who kept writing Sam, sent birthday congratulations with a reminder of his of Oct. 13 request for “a few words of opinion on my collection [autograph] to be gathered from the” newspaper clippings he’d sent [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “D—d fool”

November 30 Thursday – Sam’s 47th birthday. Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Charles Webster: “Dear Charley—There’s no sort of hurry. Yrs. S L C The watch came” [MTBus 205].

Joe Twichell wrote to invite Sam to join him and “six or eight young apprentices and mechanics to dine and spend the evening with us Saturday” [MTP].

December – Harper’s Monthly Christmas Supplement, a 32-page large-folio, edited by members of the Tile Club, ran Sam’s “The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm” [MTHL 1: 406n2; Budd, “Collected” 1020].

December 2 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to his sister, Pamela Moffett, who was in California visiting her son, Samuel Moffett.

December 5 Tuesday – Filed with the US Patent Office: patent # 547,859: to James W. Paige: Machine for Setting, Distributing and Justifying Type [MTHHR 64n1].

December 6 Wednesday – Center & Co., Private Detective Bureau, NYC wrote a postcard to Sam: “Wee [sic] have a letter of all Pawn and loan offices in City, as your watch is probably in those places. Wee will make an investigation of those places on receipt of $5.00 for expenses…send full description of watch” [MTP].

December 9 Saturday – Karl & Hattie J. Gerhardt wrote twice to Sam and Livy, in the first enclosing “a clearance paper from our consul here for a box (contents marked on invoice). It will go on the ‘Labrador’ … which sails from Ham on the 16th of December.” The baby bust was inside. The second one page letter was simply Merry Christmas wishes [MTP].

December 11 Monday – Stewart L. Woodford (chairman of the dinner committee) wrote from NYC on US attorney’s Office notepaper asking what train they might expect him, and offered to secure a hotel for him [MTP].

December 12 Tuesday – Sam replied from Hartford to the Dec. 11 of Julian Hawthorne Sam explained that the way the Canadian laws read, it was impossible for a foreigner to secure a copyright there without making false claims. He mentions that “it is said—Beecher, Jeff Davis, et al” had done it.

“The Canadian law was made, distinctly & professedly, to encourage piracy…” [MTP].

December 14 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Stewart L. Woodford (1835-1913), attorney and ex-congressman from New York. Sam informed him that the Brunswick was his hotel and that he purposed to arrive there the evening of Dec. 21 for the Dec. 22 ceremonies; he thanked him for the reminder, but Judge Russell had written him the information [MTP].

December 15 Friday – Stewart L. Woodford wrote: “Thanks for card just received. I sent it to Judge Russell, who will secure your rooms at the Brunswick and wait upon you at 545 sharp, Friday afternoon to bring you to Delmonico’s” [MTP].

Karl & Hattie J. Gerhardt (to Sam and Livy) wrote enclosing the bill of lading for the box sent (baby bust). He mentioned making a sketch for the Paul Revere statue contest [MTP].

December 16 Saturday – Sam typed a short note from Hartford to John Brown Jr. thanking him for the picture sent “of a room whose aspect was so familiar to us and with which we have so many loving associations.” Sam sent another picture of little Jean, saying “two pictures of Jean Clemens” were much better “than none at all” [MTP].

December 18 Monday – Grace Meyer wrote from New Paris, Indiana to Sam, with a pathetic story of her life. A fan, but she didn’t seem to ask for anything except that the letter not be made public [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Poor devil!”

December 21 Thursday – Sam went to New York in the evening [Dec. 14 letter to Woodford, MTP]. He stayed at the Hotel Brunswick [N.Y. Times, PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE, p.5 Dec. 23, 1882].

December 22 Friday – Sam had a list of errands to attend to during the day, probably meeting with Webster among other things [Dec.

December 23 Saturday – The New York Times reported on p.1 the banquet and Sam’s speech of the previous night:

[Mark Twain delivered] an address which kept the tables in a roar for a quarter of an hour. The speaker brought his words out in an indescribable drawl, and puffed a cloud of smoke from his cigar between every two sentences [MTNJ 2: 505n240].

This day or shortly after, Sam returned home to Hartford.

December 25 Monday – Christmas – Sam gave Livy a copy of Robert Herrick’s (1591-1674) Selections from the Poetry of Robert Herrick (1882) and inscribed it: “Livy L. Clemens / from / S. L. Clemens / Xmas 1882” [Gribben 311].