Day By Day Dates

October 27 Monday – Jane Lampton Clemens, Sam’s mother, died at age 87.

Sam and Clara Clemens left Bryn Mawr and arrived back in Hartford by evening where they were met with the news of Jane’s death, probably by telegram from Orion and Mollie Clemens [Oct. 23 to Hall].

James G. Batterson for Travelers Insurance, Hartford wrote to Sam: “News from Bryn Mawr received. I shall be at my office all day to-morrow” [MTP].

October 28 Tuesday – Sam endured the grueling 24-hour turned into 48-hour train trip to Hannibal, Mo., for his mother’s funeral.

From his notebook:

Oct. 28. Left at 8.03 a.m. Left Springfield at 10.32 a.m. Should have reached Chicago at 10.10 next a.m. Really got there 6.45 p.m. Took C.B. & Q at 10.30 p.m. Due at Quincy without change at 8.30 next morning. Hannibal at 9.55 [3: 592].

October 29 Wednesday – Sam arrived in Chicago at 6:45 p.m. and left at 10:30 p.m. He would arrive at Hannibal the next morning, Oct. 30, the day of the funeral.

October 30 Thursday – Sam arrived in Hannibal at 9:55 a.m. Jane Clemens was buried in the afternoon under a large tree at Mount Olivet Cemetery, next to the graves of her husband John Marshall Clemens, and son, Henry Clemens. Sam left for home again in the evening [MTNJ 3: 592n67; Powers, MT A Life 532].

From Burlington, Iowa Sam wrote to Orion and Mollie Clemens, thanking them both for their faithful service in taking care of Jane Clemens “these terrible 8 years.” His trip back was stalled.

October 31 Friday – Sam arrived back home in Hartford, either late in the evening or in the wee hours of Nov. 1.

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November 1 Saturday – Orion Clemens wrote two one-page letters to Sam:

I am very sorry you were delayed; but it could not be foreseen. / You have nothing to regret toward Ma. You did all you could, and really and generously; but I feel that your praises are real deserved. I am stung with remorse. If I had her back I would recall and abolish every harsh or over-done modulation of voice; I would talk and listen to her more; I would cheer her oftener with hopes of the impossible.

November 3 Monday – Livy wrote to her mother about Susy:

We get rather homesick letters from Susy still. I am afraid when she goes back after being home for Thanksgiving that she will be still more homesick [Salsbury 283].

November 4 Tuesday – Robert J. Burdette wrote from Bryn Mawr, Penn. to Sam:

I came home to save the country and find waiting for me something I would rather read than the President’s message any time — a letter from you. Having saved the country and read your letter, I am off for the wars again. / Robert the junior said he saw you crossing the College grounds Sunday a week ago, but the rest of the family laughed him to scorn and said he had seen a spirit. But the phantom which we are now convinced that he saw, will always be a most welcome ghost at our material dinner table [MTP].

November 5 Wednesday – Among those sending condolences on the death of Jane Clemens, Laurence Hutton’s note is not extant. Sam answered it today:

I thank you for the kind & sympathetic words. My sorrow was appeased when I saw the serene face in the coffin, every trace of care gone from it, & only repose & peace visible there [MTP].

William Winter also wrote on Oct. 28. Sam thanked him and observed:

November 6 Thursday – Katherine (Kate) Foote wrote to Sam thanking him for a book (unspecified) sent for an Indian boy; she would let the doctor take it to the reservation and would let Sam know what the boy thought of it [MTP].

Cecilia Fosbery wrote from London to Sam; she met him four years before while staying at the Hotel Capitol in Hartford with her father, who was doing work at the Colt factory. She asked Mark Twain for his autograph for the wife of Dr. Hutchinson Tristram, “a very well known man…He wants one of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s” — was it possible? [MTP].

November 8 Saturday – Sam went to New York, and if the Tribune letter of Nov. 11 is to be believed, arrived at 11:25 a.m., leaving after a few hours for home, after an altercation with a horse-car conductor. He then wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Sun which ran in the newspaper the next day as “An Appeal Against Injudicious Swearing”:

November 9 Sunday – Sam’s Nov. 8 letter, “An Appeal Against Injudicious Swearing,” to the New York Sun ran on page six (see Nov. 8).

Frank Curtiss, president of the Sixth Avenue Horse-Car Co. began a letter to Sam he finished Nov. 12, and which ran in the Nov. 13, 1890 N.Y. World p,4 “Mark Twain Gains His Point”:

November 10 Monday – MTNJ 3: 592n69 shows Sam’s Nov. 8 letter also running in the New York World.

Charles J. Langdon wrote to Sam (Webster & Co. to Langdon Nov. 8 encl.):

Enclosed I send you draft on New York for $10,000 which mother proposes to make as a loan to Livy. I also enclose a note for Livy to sign and return for the same. I have made the rate of interest 4% that is what mother kindly charges me for some funds of hers that I have. But I trust Livy will make Chas. L. Webster & Co. pay her 6% for the same [MTP].

November 11 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall that his mother-in-law, Olivia Lewis Langdon, had agreed to loan $10,000 for one year at six percent. He asked Hall to send her the firm’s note. After his signature Sam clarified, “(Her mother lends it to her)” [MTP].

Joseph Hatton wrote from N.Y. to Sam: “My lawyer in London is in negotiation with Mrs Berringer for the acting rights to Prince & P. in England. I suppose there is no doubt that she has your rights for England?” Sam wrote on the envelope, “Joseph Hatton (will answer him)” [MTP].

November 12 Wednesday – Robert Underwood Johnson for Am. Copyright League wrote to notify Sam that in the League’s Nov. 11 meeting Sam was elected a member of the Council of the League. Sam wrote on the env, “Brer, acknowledge this & receipt it for me / SLC” [MTP].

November 13 Thursday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam: “Your letter this moment received. I have cut it in two above the word ‘private’ and shall mail it forthwith to Fry, with only this comment: ‘Sam sends me the enclosed which means, I suppose, that I am to write nothing, and you are to use nothing that I told you’”. Fry had been asked to do an article on the Clemens family [MTP]. See Nov. 1 entry.

November 14 Friday – C.R. Plummer, Special Agent, Lowell, Mass., special orders on dictionaries, “Atlases, Encyclopedias” wrote to Sam (clippings encl.) noting changes in a circular sent to him by Webster & Co. [MTP].

November 15 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Joseph Hatton of the N.Y. Herald that it had been “an age since we foregathered in London.” Sam was reminded that he was old. Hatton’s Nov. 11 confessed he’d missed the P&P play in Brooklyn, which was Edward H. House’s version. “Not much loss,” Sam wrote. As for visiting the Hattons in New York, Sam wrote,

November 16 Sunday – Sam’s notebook entry for this day lists songs given at an evening concert given by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers in Hartford’s Asylum Hill Congregational Church. These include, “I know that my Redeemer Lives,” “Steal Away,” and “It Causes me to Tremble,” which Sam noted was “Beautiful.” In between songs the Rev. C.W. Sheldon, secretary of the American Missionary Association, who was traveling with the group; and Joseph Twichell, and some of the singers gave short speeches.

November 17 Monday – Sam wrote to Joe Goodman in Fresno, letter not extant but referred to in Joe’s Nov. 24 [MTP].

S.F. Fleharty wrote two one-page notes to Sam about the “Street car incident” and firing of the conductor in N.Y. “Please don’t visit New York again! Chicago, with the World’s Columbian Exposition and Theo. Thomas in her embrace, yearns for you.”; Fleharty resented the way the N.Y. Tribune had made fun of Sam in the incident (See article Nov. 11) [MTP].

November 18 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam mailed a calling card with a mourning border to John Russell Young, congratulating his wife, Rose Fitzpatrick Young (1841-1881) and hoping “that she will always try to deserve her good fortune” [MTP]. Note: Mrs. Young’s achievement is not specified.

November 19 Wednesday – Rev. Edwin Pond Parker wrote to Sam upset at learning a “public reception” for H.M. Stanley would be given following his Hartford lecture, and solely to those who had paid $1 to hear him. He applied to Sam assuming that the Stanley’s would be their guest again [MTP].

An unidentified person from N.Y. sent Sam a critical note about the firing of the conductor [MTP].

November 20 Thursday – Stillman & Co., Agents, Hartford, billed $10 for re-dying seal coat: Livy wrote on bill: “Dear Sirs/ My absence from town must be my excuse for this bill’s remaining so long unpaid / O.L. Clemens”; Paid Dec. 21, 1890 [MTP].

Sam wrote to William J. Bok for Bok Syndicate Press, N.Y., objecting to a published paragraph in “Bok’s Literary Leaves” about Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher. Sam’s letter not extant but referred to in Bok’s apology of Nov. 28 [MTP].

November 21 Friday – Sam and Livy arrived in Elmira and went to Olivia Lewis Langdon’s bedside [Nov. 27 to Howells].

Thomas F. Shields, the fired N.Y. horse-car conductor, wrote to Sam after receiving his telegram several days before. Shields, upon applying back to the Horse-Car Co., was reinstated, albeit as an “extra conductor”; he wrote it would “take some time before I get a steady car again” [MTP].