December 22 Tuesday – Mansfield Hobbs, an attorney friend of Ralph W. Ashcroft filed incorporation papers for the Mark Twain Company, with $5,000 in capital stock. Clemens, Ashcroft, and Isabel Lyon were the original officers. Sam signed a document assigning and transferring all of his literary rights to the new corporation.

December 23 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to the Dec. 10 of L.M. Powers. “Published without my consent; & promptly suppressed. SLC /Don’t know where to find this one. It was a political brochure” [MTP].

December 24 Thursday – In Redding, Conn. Sam inscribed a copy of P&P to Ossip Gabrilowitsch: “To Ossip Gabrilowitsch, all good wishes & a Merry Christmas, from the Author. Stormfield, Dec. 24/08” [MTP].  

December 25 Friday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Dorothy Butes.

December 26 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam sent the same postcard with a photo of himself, Ashcroft, and Lyon to Dorothy Sturgis, this time adding supposed dialog between those photographed:  

December 27 Sunday – Sam’s new guestbook:

Name  Address  Date  Remarks

December 28 Monday – In Redding, Sam wrote a postcard to Ragnvald Blix in Munich, Germany.

December 29 Tuesday – Sam wrote in the new Guestbook before transferring names and information from the old guestbook:  

STORMFIELD GUESTBOOK

December 30 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Elizabeth Alexander Alexander (Mrs. John White Alexander).

December 31 Thursday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Gertrude Natkin in N.Y.C.

“Is Shakespeare Dead?”– Stormfield $1 Tax – Clara vs. Isabel
Lyon Breaks Down – Clara’s Affair – Carnegie Dinner – Ashcroft Weds Lyon
“Lobster Pot” Boils – H.H.’s Railway – Who Fired Horace? – Lyon Sacked
St. Timothy’s – Ashcroft-Lyon MS – H.H. Rogers Dies – Lost Footnote
Twain Sues Mrs. Ashcroft – “Tobacco” Heart – Amicable Settlement
 Ossip Weds Clara – Jean Comes Home – Bermuda with Paine
“Jean is a surprise & a wonder” – Jean dies: “I always envy the dead”

January –Samuel Wyatt wrote from Berks, England to offer three pages of verse after reading JA [MTP].

January 1 Friday – In Redding, Conn., Isabel V. Lyon replied for Sam to the Dec. 28, 1908 from Clara Frazer in Withers Mill, Mo.

Dear Miss Frazer: / Mr. Clemens asks me to write for him & say certainly you may have that photograph copyrighted, & then used on post cards.

It is such a pretty little photograph that when the cards are printed, Mr Clemens hopes to have some of them.

January 2 Saturday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a postcard to daughter Jean. “Happy New Year, Jean dear! And I hope you will have many more. / Affectionately” … [MTP].

Sam also wrote a postcard with a photograph of Stormfield to Dorothy Quick. Happy New Year! Jan. 2’09

It is a very nice poem, Dorothy dear; that is my opinion, & Miss Lyon’s, too.

January 3 Sunday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Margaret Blackmer at the Misses Tewksbury’s School, Washington-on-Hudson, N.Y.

January 4 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to the Telephone Operators.

To the Young Ladies of the Telephone Office:

I have received your kind & welcome notes, & I thank you for them, & wish you a happy New year, with many & many others to follow.

Your obliged & appreciative friend Mark Twain  [MTP]. Note: Sam sent each operator a box of candy.

Sam also wrote on The Educational Theatre for Children letterhead, to an unidentified man.

January 5 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a three-paragraph letter (again on the Children’s Theatre letterhead) to an unidentified  person, inviting to a course of lectures at the Lyceum Theatre [MTP: Cordelia and Tom Platt catalogs, Nov. 1993, Item 1F]. Note: like the Jan. 4 letter this and likely several others were sent out to promote “the dramatic instinct in education.”

January 6 Wednesday – Anna L. Cunningham wrote to thank Sam for the box of chocolates [MTP]. Note: “Telephone girl”

January 7 Thursday – Sam’s new guestbook:           

Name Address Date Remarks

H.W. Dearborn [signed]    [New York]  Jan. 7

Ragnvald Blix began a letter to Sam that he finished Jan. 21 [MTP]. Note: not found at MTP.

January 8 Friday – John Albert Macy brought galleys of Some Acrostic Signatures of Francis Bacon, etc. (1909) by William Stone Booth (1864-1926) . Sam then wrote the first pages of “Is Shakespeare Dead?”  Sam thereby became convinced that “Booth, had demonstrated, beyond any doubt or question, that the Bacon signatures were there” (in Shakespeare’s works) [Gribben 77; MTB 1479, 1485-6].

Sam’s new guestbook:  

Name Address Date Remarks

Annie S. Macy

January 9 Saturday – The Armstrong Assoc. of New York, per May Hurlburt sent Sam tickets for a box at Carnegie Hall on Jan. 22 [MTP].

Diana Belais, President of the New York Anti-Vivisection Society wrote to ask Sam for a letter of introduction to Harpers, as they were in “a terrific fight …against the Medical Society of New York, which has banded indissolubly to crush out our movement” [MTP].

January 10 Sunday – Richard Watson Gilder wrote on Wells College, Aurora NY letterhead to ask Sam if he could be present on Wed. Jan. 13 at Carnegie Hall, 5 p.m. for a meeting in memory of Stedman—“if it wouldn’t be a burden” [MTP].

January 11 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam inscribed his photo to Anne Sullivan Macy

(Mrs. John Albert Macy): “To Mrs. John Sullivan Macy, with warm regard, & with limitless admiration of the wonders she has performed as a miracle-worker—/ Mark Twain / Stormfield, Jan. 11/09.” [MTP].  

Sam’s new guestbook:  

Name Address Date Remarks

Helen Keller  Jan. 11 [see below]

January 12 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to the Jan. 8 from General Oliver Otis Howard (1830-1909).

Dear General Howard:

You pay me a most gratifying compliment in asking me to preside, & it causes me very real regret that I am obliged to decline, for the object of the meeting appeals strongly to me, since that object is to aid in raising the $500,000 Endowment Fund for Lincoln Memorial University.

January 13 Wednesday – Ino Downey for the Men’s Club of Holy Trinity Church, NYC wrote to invite Sam to their annual dinner on Feb. 22 [MTP]. Note: “Ans. Jan 14 M.L.H.”