Day By Day Dates

February 25 Thursday – Early in the morning, Sam took a train 125 miles north to Stuyvesant, New York, where he gave his “Vandals” lecture.

February 26 Friday – Sam wrote after midnight from Stuyvesant to Livy, and enclosed a photograph of himself taken at Gurney & Son on Fifth Avenue in New York. He had left New York City early in the day. In Stuyvesant, Sam was the guest of Rev. Elbert Nevius [MTL 3: 111-14]. Sam left Stuyvesant in the morning and traveled all day.

February 27 Saturday –Sam traveled all night and arrived in Lockport, some 250 miles. He wrote from Lockport, New York to Livy. Sam wrote much more flippantly about Jervis than he had in the past. The two men were becoming closer friends, and Sam loved to tease Livy, or anyone whom he liked. Sam also wrote to Jane Clemens and family, and started a letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks [MTL 3: 114]. Note: also Sam’s first meeting of John De La Fletcher Slee (1837-1901). See 119n4 in source.

February 28 Sunday – Sam wrote from Rochester, New York finishing the Feb. 27 letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks. He also wrote to Livy:

March – Sam’s OPEN LETTER TO COM. VANDERBILT appeared in the March edition of Packard’s Monthly: The Young Men’s Magazine. The letter was a sarcastic blast at Cornelius Vanderbilt, which parodied the effusive and uncritical press Vanderbilt usually received [Camfield, bibliog.].

March 1 Monday – Sam gave his “Vandals” lecture at Concert Hall in Geneseo, New York [MTPO].
Sam wrote from Rochester, NY to Livy:

March 3 Wednesday – Sam gave his “Vandals” lecture, which had been postponed from Feb. 27, in Arcade Hall, Lockport, New York [MTPO].
Reverend Joseph L. Bennett (b. 1823 or 1824) called on Clemens in the evening. Referred to in Sam’s Mar. 4 to Livy:

March 4 Thursday – Sam wrote from Lockport to Livy:
“My last lecture (for some time, at least,) is delivered, & I am so glad that I must fly to you (on paper,) & make you help me hurrah. The long siege is over, & I may rest at last. I feel like a captive set free” [MTL 3: 134].
Sam was not through lecturing, but he would have a twelve-day rest. He left Lockport for Hartford, traveling all night and part of the next day.

March 5 Friday – Sam arrived in Hartford, where he wrote Livy. Sam called on the Courant office during the day, but Gov. Hawley had traveled to Washington, D.C. to see Grant’s inauguration. Hawley was to arrive back in Hartford this evening and call on Sam at his hotel. Sam then visited the Twichells and left at half past eleven, refusing their kind offer to stay with them while in Hartford. Sam stayed instead at the Allyn House Hotel [MTL 3: 136-8, 143].

March 6 Saturday – Sam wrote twice from Hartford to Livy. He’d seen “a dozen or two” of the illustrations for Innocents Abroad, and wrote that they were “very artistically engraved.” He praised the talents of the engraver, Truman “True” Williams.

March 7 Sunday – Sam wrote a “long newspaper article…till 11 o’clock [PM],” probably “The White House Funeral,” a scathing mock report of President Andrew Johnson’s final cabinet meeting before Grant’s inauguration of Mar. 4. The article was in proofs and not published, most likely due to reports of Johnson’s severe illness [MTL 3: 148, 151n2]. Note: In those days, the press still had some class.

March 8 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy about writing the article the night before and being unable to sleep until daylight. He rose at 9:30 AM and wrote letters. “I’ll call on the Hookers or die. Saw Mr. Hooker a moment after I left Mrs. B. He was the very man I wanted to see. Because I like him, in spite of prejudice and everything else” [MTL 3: 149]. 

Sam also wrote to John Russell Young, editor of the New York Tribune, sending the “Funeral” article [MTL 3: 150].

March 9 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy about his love for her, the up-coming trip to California, and the wisdom of “sowing oats” early in life, etc. Sam had thought it over and spoken with Rev.

March 10 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy and her brother [MTL 3: 158]. Before leaving Hartford, Sam discovered that the directors of the American Publishing Co. wanted out of the contract to publish Innocents Abroad. When Elisha Bliss threatened to publish it on his own after Sam had threatened suit, the board of directors relented and Bliss went forward with the book, which would not appear until July.

March 12 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Livy.
I am not all afraid of the Hookers, now—dine there tonight. Woe! WOE! WOE! you blessed little rascal!….P.S.—I go to Boston to-morrow, at Nasby’s request, to spend two days with him & the literary lions of the “Hub.” Monday night I leave there for New York—lecture Tuesday in Newtown, & the—very—next—evening, I spurn the U.S. Mail & bring my kisses to my darling myself! [MTL 3: 161-5].

March 13 Saturday – In Hartford, Sam wrote at midnight on Mar. 12-13, again to Livy. “Had a really pleasant time at Mrs. Hooker’s last night, Twichell & I” [MTL 3: 173].
He also wrote a short note to Horatio C. King and John R. Howard of Beecher’s Plymouth Church, declining their offer to lecture in New York, informing them that it was too late since “he must make ready for a short visit to California.”

March 14 Sunday – Sam met Oliver Wendell Holmes and other literary lights of Boston. He was accompanied by David Ross Locke (Petroleum V. Nasby) who had been lecturing in Boston [MTL 3: 174; MTPO notes Sept. 30 O.W. Holmes].

March 15 Monday – After Boston socializing, Sam left for New York City in the evening [MTL 3: 174].

March 16 Tuesday – Sam stopped at New York Tribune to discuss more articles for the newspaper. Sam gave his “Vandals” lecture in Newtown, New York, on Long Island [MTL 3: 174]. He left New York for Elmira.

March 17 Wednesday – John Russell Young, editor of the Tribune, gave or sent Sam an extract from a San Francisco Evening Bulletin article about the importation of Chinese women for prostitution. Young asked Sam to pen a response, and it is likely he did so within a day or two [MTL 3: 174]. Sam arrived in Elmira in the evening.

March 18 Thursday – Sam was a guest of the Langdons, who were entertaining a well-known guest, Wendell Phillips, former abolitionist and social reformer. Phillips gave a lecture in the evening at the Elmira Opera House on Daniel O’Connell, Irish political leader. During his visit, Sam had said something derogatory about Phillips for which he expressed embarrassment to Livy in the margin of Oliver Wendell Holmes’ Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. This book he was marking for Livy would afterward be known as their “courting book” [MTL 3: 174-5].

March 19 or 20 Saturday – Sam left Elmira and traveled to Sharon, Pennsylvania, where he gave his “Vandals” lecture, which he called a “grand success” [MTL 3: 175].

March 21 Sunday – Sam returned to Elmira, where he continued proofing Innocents Abroad with Livy.

March 24 Wednesday – The Sharon Times reported that Sam was “about to issue a work of some six hundred pages, ‘The Innocents Abroad, or the New Pilgrim’s Progress’.” The notice confirms that by this time Sam had decided on the new title for the book [MTL 3: 175].

March 25 Thursday – Sam wrote in Livy’s copy of Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,

Midnight March 25, 1869—I wish “Even Me” to be sung at my funeral.