Day By Day Dates

April 18 Tuesday – Still ailing in Chicago, Sam wrote to Livy, back at the Villa Viviani in Florence:

The doctor is done with me but requires Mr. Hall to keep me in bed a day longer, & maybe two. I do not mind it, for the reading & smoking is (are) pleasant — but! Yesterday the calling was like a levee. No respite, no rest. To-day we are wiser.

April 19 Wednesday – Sam was abed with a bad cold — see Apr. 13 entry.

April 20 Thursday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam, enclosing a letter from their sister Pamela, hoping that Sam would go to see her; “She will feel much hurt if you do not”; she hadn’t received her royalty from Whitmore. Orion had failed to secure employment with the Keokuk Gate City or the St. Louis Republic as a correspondent to the Chicago fair [MTP].

James W. Paige visited Sam in his sick bed. Sam wrote of the meeting in his Apr. 23 notebook entry.

April 21 Friday – At the Great Northern Hotel in Chicago, Sam ventured out of bed for the first time since becoming ill with a bad cold upon arriving on Apr. 13.

April 22 Saturday – In Chicago Sam was able to walk “about the room” during Apr. 21 and 22 [Apr. 24 to Orion].

April 23 Sunday – Sam’s notebook in Chicago:

April 24 Monday – At 3:15 p.m. in Chicago, Sam responded to Orion’s Apr. 20 letter. He told of being able to walk about the room for parts of the past two days, and the doctor deciding he was well enough to travel. Sam and Fred Hall would leave “a couple of hours hence for New York by the Limited.” He’d heard from the family and passed on the news.

April 25 Tuesday – Sam spent the day on the train and arrived in New York in the evening, taking a room at the Murray Hill Hotel [Apr. 24 to Whitmore].

April 26 Wednesday – Sam’s notebook: “Werra, Sat. Apl. 26, 10. a.m.” [NB 33 TS 7].

At the Murray Hill Hotel in New York, Sam, in a rather crabby mood, wrote to Orion Clemens:

April 27 Thursday – Sam’s notebook in N.Y.:

Apl. 27. To-day is the grand Columbian naval parade here in New York Harbor & Hudson River, & I am still sick & can’t go to see it [NB 33 TS 11].

April 28 Friday – Dr. and Mrs. Clarence C. Rice moved Sam from the Murray Hill Hotel into their home at 81 Irving Place, N.Y. [Apr. 30 to Warner]. Note: MTHHR p.11 gives 123 E. 19th St. as Rice’s address.

In Florence Livy wrote to Sam:

April 30 Sunday – In N.Y. at Dr. Rice’s home, Sam wrote to Annie E. Trumbull, directing her to send a book she wished him to have to Elmira, in care of Charles J. Langdon.

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May 1 Monday – Still at Dr. Rice’s home in New York, Sam sent a civil note to his brother, Orion.

I am less nervous now….If the weather is fair in the morning I go to Elmira, & will stay on the hill at Susie Crane’s until I am sound & hearty again. With love to you both / Sam [MTP].

May 2 Tuesday – In the morning Sam left New York and traveled to Elmira, a nine or ten hour trip. He stayed at Susan Crane’s Quarry Hill home.

May 3 Wednesday – Franklin G. Whitmore wrote to Sam, “glad to hear that you are better & well enough…to travel.” Whitmore mentioned mailing Matthew Arnot’s note to Charles Langdon and lists a $25 bill from Dr. Porter and a Murray Hill Hotel bill for $30.65 [MTP].

May 4 Thursday – The Panic of 1893 got into high (or maybe more appropriately, low) gear with a severe contraction of the New York Stock Exchange May 3 and 4. Financial reverses would worsen, ultimately forcing the downfall of Webster & Co., as well as the Paige typesetter. From the N.Y. Times, p.10, “Financial and Commercial”:

VERY NEARLY A PANIC ON THE NEW-YORK STOCK EXCHANGE

Wednesday, May 3 — P.M.

May 5 Friday – At Quarry Farm, Elmira, and still in bed recovering, Sam wrote to Frederick J. Hall. He wanted the note for $3,000 sent in error to Whitmore re-drafted in Livy’s name and sent to Charles J. Langdon, as he kept her power of attorney. Evidently, there had been a good quantity of LAL sales:

If we could corral 27 LAL’s every day — & could afford it — our financial bowels would soon begin to move.

May 6 Saturday – In Elimra at Quarry Farm, Sam wrote a short note to Livy:

May 7 Sunday – At Quarry Farm Sam answered Susy’s recent letter, describing familiar places at the farm, including the children’s playhouse, Ellerslie, which had,

…just been furnished with a bran-spang-new shingle-roof at great Expense, & Mrs. Crane says that the owners of Ellerslie are a hard lot in the matter of repairs & taxes.

Sam also described the barn and each horse that Susy and Jean would have been familiar with:

May 8 Monday – In Elmira Sam thought he’d “steal a moment” and write to Mary Mason Fairbanks, now in Newton Mass. with her daughter. Sam’s letter reads as a response to Mary’s (not extant) and her news that Edward Bok, editor of the Ladies Home Journal, had criticized one of Sam’s unpublished pieces, in an article as Sam’s next letter to Hall reflects. Sam marked the letter “Private & Confidential” due to his reference to Edward Bok:

May 9 Tuesday – In the morning Sam took the ten-hour train ride from Elmira back to New York, where he checked into the Murray Hill Hotel. Livy cabled (not extant) asking how his cold was and Sam “answered properly,” which may have been another cable [May 11 to Ida Langdon].

May 11 Thursday – In New York at the Murray Hill Hotel, Sam wrote to Ida Langdon (Mrs. Charles J. Langdon) on Webster & Co. letterhead. After relating his communications with Livy upon arriving and seeing enough Hartford people at the hotel to call it a “suburb of Hartford,” Sam thanked her:

I sail at 10 Saturday morning, & am all ready, though my shirts ain’t; they are in the wash.

May 12 Friday – In New York, Sam was out in the city nearly all day until 9 p.m., including “a little visit” with Charles Dudley Warner. At midnight Sam wrote to William Dean Howells, who had come from his home at 48 West 59th Street to say goodbye.

I am so sorry I missed you….I expected to get up to your house again, but got defeated.

I am very glad to have that book for sea entertainment, & I thank you ever so much for it.

May 13 Saturday – At 10 a.m. the SS Kaiser Wilhelm II sailed for Genoa, Italy with Sam on board. Sam’s notebook:

May 13, Saturday. Room 268 Kaiser Wilhelm II. Cast off at 10.15 a.m., discharged pilot at 12.30. Only half a trip of passengers [NB 33 TS 12].