Day By Day Dates

December 8 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Twenty-nine” dated Sept. 17 ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 188-93].

December 10 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Washington to his mother and family about political prospects and about Mrs. Fairbanks.

December 12 Thursday – Sam wrote from Washington to Mary Mason Fairbanks. About Mary’s advice to get married, Sam gave the famous reply:

December 13 Friday – Sam wrote from Washington to Frank Fuller:

“I believe I have made a mistake in not lecturing this winter…I am already dead tired of being in one place so long. I have received 2 or 3 calls lately from N.Y. & Indiana towns. When are you coming down? I might take a ‘disgust’ any moment & sail for Cal” [MTL 2: 136].

December 14 Saturday – Sam dated an article this day, “Colonel Burke and the Fenians,” a humorous article for the Washington Evening Star, which was reprinted in many newspapers, including the Territorial Enterprise. The article suggested using a barrel of gunpowder to remove Edwin M. Stanton from office [Fatout, MT Speaks 50].

December 15 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Thirty” dated Sept. at “Banias” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 193-8].

Sam’s article, “Letter from Mark Twain. The Facts in the Case of the Senate Door Keeper” dated Dec. 15, ran in the New York Citizen [Camfield, bibliog.].

December 16 Monday – Sam announced to his Territorial Enterprise readers that he had resigned his secretaryship, and that “E.A. Pretois, formerly of Virginia and Sacramento, is Senator Stewart’s private secretary, now” [MTL 2: 139n4]. Note: Sam and Senator Stewart did not hit it off, and the position had not kept Sam’s interest. Once again the vagabond itch came over Sam.

December 18 Wednesday – Sam’s article “Information Wanted” dated Dec. 10, ran in the New York Tribune [Camfield, bibliog.; The Twainian, Nov-Dec 1946 p.1-2]. Note: There is no connection with George Francis Train on this entry as mistakenly shown in the first edition.

December 20 Friday – Charles Langdon, along with his father, Jervis Langdon (1809-1870), and sister Olivia Louise Langdon, arrived at the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York for a holiday stay [MTL 2: 145 n2].

Sam included a prose poem parody on Poe’s “The Raven” in his letter to the Enterprise. “Quoth the Choctaw, ‘Nevermore’” [ET&S 2: 63].

December 22 Sunday – Sam’s MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON, NUMBER I, dated Dec. 4, ran in the Virginia City Enterprise:

December 24 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to Emily A. Severance about the death of Mrs. Fairbanks’ mother. After expressed sympathies, he wrote: “I am in a fidget to move.

December 25 Wednesday – Christmas – Sam arrived in New York for the holidays, and took a room in the Westminster Hotel [MTL 2: 142n1]. Since Sam did not arrive in New York until Dec. 25, Langdon family tradition and other scholars are incorrect that he met Olivia Langdon two days before Christmas.

December 26 Thursday – Sam moved to Dan Slote’s home, probably after only one night at the Westminster Hotel [MTL 2: 142n1]. One night during this week, Charles Langdon, Jack Van Nostrand, Dan Slote and Sam got together for a “blow-out” at Dan Slote’s house “& a lively talk over old times” [MTL 2: 144].

December 27 Friday – Sam accepted an invitation from the Langdons for dinner at the St. Nicholas Hotel. There he met Olivia Louise Langdon, his wife to be [MTL 2: 145n3]. (See Dec. 31 entry)

December 29 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Thirty-two” dated Sept. at “Banias” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 204-8].

December 30 Monday – Sam wrote from New York to the Brooklyn Eagle, responding to an article “Trouble among the Pilgrims,” which had appeared on Dec. 24.

December 31 Tuesday – Sam’s article on Duncan appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle. That evening Sam went with the Langdons to Charles Dickens’ read from David Copperfield at Steinway Hall in New York. Sam noted that Dickens not only read, but acted, an important lesson Sam noted about successful platform speakers.

1867, Late – 1868 – Sometime in late 1867 Sam met General Ulysses S. Grant at a Washington reception. The two did not speak on their first meeting. MTA dictated in 1885 gives this date as “the fall or winter of 1866” [1: 13]. Mark Perry, p. xxvi, also gives this as late 1866, but Sam was not in Washington that entire year.

Washington Letters – Deal with Elisha Bliss – New York to Panama to San Francisco -  More Lectures & Goodbye to Virginia City – Goodbye to San Francisco - Panama, New York & Hartford – Elmira, Rejected Proposal and the Courtship Began - Sam met Joe Twichell – “Vandals” Lectures -  Hither and Yon

1868 – Camfield lists a story printed posthumously in Mark Twain’s Satires and Burlesques (1967): “The Story of Mamie Grant, Child Missionary” [bibliog.].

January 1 Wednesday – In the morning, Sam again saw his future wife, Olivia Louise Langdon at 115 West Forty-fourth Street, the home of Thomas S. and Anna E. Berry, friends of the Langdons. Olivia was with close friend Alice Hooker (1847-1928). In 1906 Sam wrote,

“I had thirty-four calls on my list, and this was the first one. I continued it during thirteen hours, and put the other thirty-three off till next year” [MTL 2: 146n3].

January 2 Thursday – In the Brooklyn Eagle, page 3:

The Quaker City Excursion Again—Captain Duncan’s Reply to “Mark Twain.”

 To the Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle:

 I have read Mark Twain’s last in to-day’s EAGLE, and am of opinion that when that letter was written Mark Twain was sober. Yours, truly, C.C. DUNCAN.

Brooklyn, December 31, 1867

January 5 Sunday – Sam went to Plymouth Church in Brooklyn and was a guest at Henry Ward Beecher’s home. At dinner there he met Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Catherine Beecher (1800-1878). Sam’s “old Quaker City favorite, Emma Beach,” was also there.

January 6–7 Tuesday – Sam returned by train to Washington, D.C.

January 7 Tuesday – Sam’s MARK TWAIN’S LETTERS FROM WASHINGTON, NUMBER II, dated Dec.16 1867 was printed in the Enterprise. Sections: “John Ross Browne’s Report,” “Personal,” “’Coast’ Matters,” and “The Holidays” [MTP].

January 8 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Washington to his mother, and sister Pamela. Sam told of his trip to New York, the “blowout” at Dan Slote’s house and the dinner he had at Henry Ward Beecher’s home. He also wrote that he found just found out the night before that he was to give two lectures on Jan.