Day By Day Dates

February 24 Friday – John Brusnahan of the N.Y. Herald wrote to Sam that he’d received his letter of Feb. 23 and “read with great satisfaction. It is a pleasure to feel that the end is near at hand at last.” He also reported he had not been allowed to examine the Tribune machines (Mergenthalers), so concluded they would “not stand much scrutiny” [MTP].

February 25 Saturday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam that he’d finished the research for Wm. II (for the memory game). He’d sent cousin Eleanor Lampton five dollars. Ma was “so restless” that he “concluded to take her to every kind of show that comes….Ma frequently sees the apparitions of the friends of her youth, and she longs to behold again the house of Aunt Ann, and to reside once more in Columbia” [MTP].

February 26 Sunday – Henry Edwards wrote from “The Lambs” in N.Y. to thank Sam for his note and for its frankness. Edwards understood “thoroughly”; that Sam had good reason for what he did. [MTP].

February 27 Monday – Sam gave a reading at the Hartford Public High School, probably for the Rev. Leopold Simonson’s class. The content of Sam’s reading or remarks is not known [MTNJ 3: 377].

March – About this month, Sam wrote a one-sentence letter to Stilson Hutchins (1838-1912), best known as the founder of the Washington Post, introducing:

Paige and Davis, who desire to see the type-setter at work, per my conversation with you [MTP] Note: possibly the typesetter then in evaluation at the Post.

Kinsmen Club sent Sam their printed rules adopted by the English section and Am. section [MTP].

March 1 Thursday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam thanking for his monthly $155 check. He was “anxious to hear about the machine.” Ma was having more delusions — now about Aunt Patsy Quarles who had been dead “30 or 40 years” [MTP].

March 3 Saturday – Charles J. Langdon wrote to Sam: “At last the man Jackway has paid the mortgage for which you signed satisfaction some time ago.” Enclosed a draft for $2,090.33. Katy Leary’s sister died on Mar. 2; Katy arrived this morning [MTP]. Note: this was the mortgage Livy held on an Elmira property.

March 4 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder about the up-coming Washington hearings on international copyright legislation, and on the authors reception given by President Cleveland on Mar. 19. Sam wanted to take Livy but Mother Nature would intervene.

March 5 Monday – Samuel E. Dawson, Sam’s Canadian publisher in Montreal, wrote to Sam of his “long commitment to international copyright and his long service to American authors.” Dawson felt he had not received credit for his efforts and enclosed copies of his lecture on copyright he’d sent to Roswell Smith of the Century.

March 6 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam inscribed a copy of P&P for Emma Lane: To Miss Emma Lane, with the kind regards of Mark Twain. Hartford, March 6, 1888 [MTP].

March 7 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Andrew Chatto, enclosing one of the contracts signed for Library of Humor, but withholding one that pertained to Canada. Sam promised to have one drawn up which would work “up yonder” and noted in the left margin, “It was found that the contract would not answer — in fact, would defeat itself.” Sam gave Apr.

March 8 Thursday – Joseph B. Gilder for The Critic Co. sent Sam a typed letter asking for “yes or no” about Horace’s idea that “the writer should not be affected by his own pathetic senses” [MTP].

Alfred E. Burr wrote on Hartford Times letterhead to Sam, “begging” for support of the “Good Will Club” which provided entertainment for boys and needed a larger hall [MTP].

March 9 Friday – Since the blizzard of the century hit in the evening of Mar. 11, and Sunday trains were rare or non-existent, Sam went to New York City on Mar. 10 to take care of business, the plan being for Olivia to join him in time to be in Washington on Mar. 16. (See Mar. 4 to Gilder, Mar. 16 to Livy.) In his Mar.

March 10 Saturday – Sam left Hartford for New York City [MTNJ 3: 379].

March 11 Sunday – In New York Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder, again about the up-coming hearings and the trip to Washington.

I’m ashamed to have put you to all that trouble for nothing. As I was very anxious to get the best quarters I could for Mrs. Clemens, I set several schemes to work, & the result is, I have secured a first rate parlor bedroom & bath room (connecting,) at the Arlington.

March 12 Monday – In New York, Sam signed an agreement with William Mackay Laffan, exchanging 1/200th interests in the Paige typesetter and “a certain invention for quadruplexing cablegrams.” Laffan was to raise money for both projects [MTHL 2: 246n4; MTNJ 3: 340n121].

Jesse R. Grant wrote on Webster & Co. notepad to Sam anxious to see him in N.Y. or Hartford [MTP].

March 13 Tuesday – In New York, Sam wrote a letter of introduction for Hattie J. Gerhardt to Franklin G. Whitmore. She was seeking some sort of employment for her husband Karl.

I have no way to employ him about the machine, and in the publishing house he would be of no value without special training for the business [MTP].

March 14 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook:

March 15 Thursday – Sam was still in New York City; Livy had still not arrived.

March 16 Friday – Snowbound by the blizzard, at New York’s Murray Hill Hotel, Sam wrote to Livy. Due to the storm she had not been able to join him for the trip to Washington. He’d come to New York early to attend a dinner party at Charles A. Dana’s, editor of the New York Sun. In this letter home, Sam blamed that engagement for being stuck in New York:

March 17 Saturday – In Washington, D.C. Sam, with others gave a reading at the Soldiers’ Home [Fatout, MT Speaking 658]. (Note that the following news accounts report on the Authors’ readings at the Congregational Church this day; also, Sam’s notebook gives Friday (Mar. 23) for Soldiers’ Home.)

March 18 Sunday – Grover Cleveland’s birthday. In a June 5, 1888 letter to Mrs. Cleveland (Frances F. Cleveland) Sam told of this day in Washington:

March 19 Monday – Susy Clemens’ sixteenth birthday.

March 20 Tuesday – A. Loisette wrote to Sam that he’d been successful in changing his advertisements as Sam had requested [MTP].

March 21 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook also reveals a probable appointment with Senator Thomas Meade Bowen, of Colorado to discuss the international copyright bill then in Congress; also the name of Adair Wilson at “Wednesday, 2 p.m.,” which would have had to be this day.