Day By Day Dates

October 3 Thursday – Sam finished his slipper for Elsie Leslie, the partner of one knitted by William Gillette, out of admiration for the girl actress [Oct. 5 to Leslie].

Sam’s notebook: Oct. 3. One [Paige royalty] to Orion Clemens; the other to Mrs. P.A. Moffett [3: 569].

Charles Ethan Davis wrote another typesetting record on a postcard to Sam, this one including three apprentices, “F,” “J,” and “S”. [MTP].

October 4 Friday – Sam jotted in his notebook that another of the anticipated apprentices for the Paige typesetter, Martin J. Slattery, on Oct. 3 and 4, “in his third hour (he had never seen the machine or its keyboard before) set 1593 ems. He sets 1500 an hour at the case” [3: 568].

October 5 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Richard Watson Gilder, responding to his invitation and offering to bring a guest:

Fellowcraft Club, 32 W. 28th. 7 pm Oct. 16 — I will be there.

October 6 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Sarah A. Sage (Mrs. Dean Sage) inviting for Livy and himself a visit by the Sages for Thursday, Oct. 17 and to “stay over Sunday & much longer if you can.” Livy had a “hard headache” caused by reading “five or ten minutes,” and so Sam wrote the invitation for her [MTP].

October 7 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote a long letter of proposition about the Paige typesetter to Joe Goodman. He wrote that he’d come close to writing him several times but the time wasn’t ripe then. “It is ripe, now.” After describing what the compositor would do, Sam placed an offer plainly before Goodman:

October 8 Tuesday – Pamela Moffett left the Clemens home after a week visit [Oct. 7 to Langdon]. She sent a postcard from New York that she had arrived there [mentioned in Oct. 9 to Moffett].

Richard R. Bowker for Am. Copyright League sent Sam an invitation to read at the authors’ benefit for copyright at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Dec. 16 [MTNJ 3: 523n133].

October 9 Wednesday – In Hartford, Sam wrote his sister, Pamela Moffett, who had sent a postcard from New York he received this morning.

October 10 Thursday – L.J. Drake wrote to Sam having seen an advertisement for a perpetual calendar. In 1884 and 1885 Sam had urged Charles Webster to develop and patent a portable perpetual calendar but Webster didn’t think much of the idea and so it died [MTNJ 3: 522n131].

October 11 Friday – Frank Dalzell Finlay and his daughter Miss Mary Finlay had traveled from Belfast, Ireland to America and spent some days with the Clemens family in Hartford. In 1937 Mary Finlay wrote about the visit and this specific day:

…a lovely house. His 3 daughters — the eldest then 16, were there. They gave a big dinner in Father’s honor & I was covered with confusion, being very shy and self-conscious, when Mark Twain took me in first to dinner.

October 12 Saturday – In Hartford, Sam answered Frank Fuller’s letters of Oct. 9 and 11. In the past, Fuller had often hit Sam up for various investments, most of which turned sour. Fuller was at it again, but Sam offered to take Fuller’s money this time.

October 13 Sunday – The New York World announced a “contest of ideas” with a first prize of $1,000. The winners of the best ideas presented were to be announced on Christmas morning. Sam’s notebook carries this entry, which he wrote he proposed, though no record of any response has been found:

Oct. 13, ’89. Proposed my idea (of buying the remains of Columbus & bringing them over to the Fair of ’92,) to the N.Y. World “Committee on Ideas” — but shan’t name the idea till I hear from them [MTNJ 3: 523n134].

October 14 Monday – In Hartford, on or just after A.F. Kelly’s letter of Oct. 12 with check arrived, Sam forwarded them to Franklin G. Whitmore and asked him to acknowledge receipt [MTP]. Note: allowing for mailing time between Elmira and Hartford, this would be the soonest Sam might have forwarded the letter and check to Whitmore.

The New York Times ran a short paragraph on p.8 of Sam’s invitation to a benefit:

THE HORACE GREELEY STATUE.

October 15 Tuesday – The New York World ran a piece about the Earl of Galloway rape case in England, in which the earl was acquitted on Oct. 14. Sam made an entry about it in his notebook. The article implied that the earl was found not guilty because of his power and wealth [MTNJ 3: 523n135].

Joseph T. Goodman wrote from Fresno:

October 16 Wednesday –Hartford. Sam, laid up in bed, wrote again to Frank Fuller. After a paragraph about his old tendency to speculate and his eventual lack of interest in it, Sam talked about his health.

October 17 Thursday – In Cambridge, Mass., William Dean Howells wrote reporting on the proofs of CY, and telling Sam what he probably already knew:

This last batch, about the King’s and the Boss’s adventures, is all good; and it’s every kind of a delightful book. Passages in it do my whole soul good. — I suppose the Church will get after you; and I think it’s a pity that you don’t let us see how whenever Christ himself could get a chance, all possible good was done [MTHL 2: 614].

October 18 Friday – Susan L. Crane wrote to Sam, having received this evening five royalties on the Paige typesetter; it seemed “very tame” for her to simply say “thank you.” She continued to say it for six pages [MTP].

October 19 Saturday – Karl Gerhardt wrote from Hartford to Sam:

Of course you shall have all the time you require in regard to the offer I made on OCTOBER 4th 1889; As a matter of form I will place the time at JUNE 1st 1889…I called on Saturday to see you but you were in N.Y…. [MTP]. Note: Gerhardt wanted Sam to influence the building of a factory for the manufacture of Paige typesetters on Gerhardt’s land. See Oct. 7 entry.

October 21 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Susan L. Crane, assuring her that financial security was hers, with her securities and the royalties from the Paige machine. Sam was full of optimism. He even referred to her late husband:

I hope Theodore hovers about us & is still interested in our efforts & victories; in which case it has pleased him to hear the emissary of the greatest of newspapers order 33 machines & forget to ask what we are going to charge him for them [MTP].

October 22 Tuesday – William Dean Howells received Sam’s Oct. 21 and sent an answer that Elinor Howells was not well and not likely to be all winter. The two men shared the curse of puny spouses. However, Howells hoped to come alone.

October 23 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote a scolding apology to Henry Loomis Nelson (1846-1908) who had called on the Clemens home and been mistaken for a peddler. Loomis had been secretary of the American Copyright League and would later become editor of Harper’s Weekly. He was also an author and educator.

Great Scott, what a thoughtless man you are! Why the mischief didn’t you write on your card in the first place? …

October 24 Thursday – Treasurer for the National Park Bank of N.Y. wrote to Sam, acknowledging his check # 4432 for $20 for the Horace Greeley Statue Fund [MTP].

Douglas Taylor, General Mercantile Printer, N.Y. wrote to Sam: “Your welcome note-letter 21st p’m’k 23 just rec’d. / I’d be delighted to run up a day or two to Hartford.” Sam wrote on the envelope, “Interesting letter from Douglas Taylor, Inc. Typesetter & Co. / Oct 1889”  [MTP].

October 25 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles H. Taylor of the Boston Globe who had invited him to speak before the Boston Press Club in early November. Sam thanked him but wrote,

I shall without doubt be compelled to spend the first ten days of November in Washington [MTP].

Karl Gerhardt wrote a short note to Sam: “Enclosed please find quarterly receipts on policy no-333154-Equitable Life $5000-to date” [MTP].

October 26 Saturday – Sam’s notebook carries an entry with this date that he offered his friend Henry C. Robinson royalties on the Paige typesetter at the same price he’d given Clara Spaulding Stanchfield [3: 524]. Note: Robinson, an attorney, was a Friday night billiards regular.

Robert Underwood Johnson for Century Magazine wrote to Sam :

October 27 Sunday – William Dean Howells wrote again, unable to come for the visit he’d planned.

I am awfully sorry to put myself off; but we are blistering under the curse of house-hunting, and till something is decided, we are mere shrieks of agony. May I ask myself on a little later?

The book is glorious — simply noble. What masses of virgin truth never touched in print before!

Would the book make it out by Dec. 20? He didn’t want to “make a fool of the Study” [MTHL 2: 617].

October 28 Monday – In Hartford Sam responded to Howells’ letter of the day before:

Don’t be afraid. As I have given my word to the canvassers that my book will be out & in their hands Dec. 10, nothing can stop it from coming out on that date. It is true I have a passion for lying to rich people, but I do not lie to men who get their bread by thankless hard work [MTHL 2: 617].