Day By Day Dates

January 1 Saturday – Sam wrote from Elmira to George L. Hutchings about Trenton’s True American printing a lengthy synopsis of Sam’s Dec. 28 lecture. Sam hated it when newspapers did that; he imagined that people would not go to his lectures if they could read them in the papers. He sent Hutchings his apology for being upset by being shown the synopsis [MTL 5: 685].

January 4 Tuesday – Sam and Livy traveled thirty miles east of Elmira where Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Wilson Hall, Owego, New York. They returned to Elmira that evening [MTL 4: 5n2].

January 5 Wednesday – Sam left at 8 PM and traveled overnight by train from Elmira to New York City [MTL 4: 2n1, 3].

January 5-6 Thursday – Clemens wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “Interviewing the Interviewer” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxiv].

January 6 Thursday – Sam wrote at 9 AM from Dan Slote’s in New York to Livy.

“The Amenia train has been changed to 3.30 instead of 4, PM., & so it is just right. I can arrive there at 7.21, whoop my lecture & clear out again.”

He’d been reading Robinson Crusoe and kept losing the book. “It is just like me. I must have a nurse” [MTL 4: 1].

January 7 Friday – In the wee hours after midnight, Sam wrote from Amenia, New York to Mary Mason Fairbanks.

January 8 Saturday – At midnight in the Troy House, Troy, New York, Sam wrote to Livy. He wrote her a second letter later in the day. His second letter marveled at the insignificance of the earth in the universe and of man. “Does one apple in a vast orchard think as much of itself as we do?” Sam was reading “The Early History of Man” in Eclectic Magazine for Jan. 1870 [MTL 4: 12].

Sam also wrote his agent, James Redpath, of “one-horse” towns, bills, and the like.

January 10 Monday – At noon, Sam wrote from Albany New York to Livy, apologizing for his Owego lecture she had attended. The reviews were good, however. “What an eternity a lecture-season is!” Sam wrote that he was reading Ivanhoe. “He is dead, now” [MTL 4: 15-16].

That evening he lectured (“Savages”) in Tweddle Hall, Albany. Afterward in bed he wrote again to Livy. “Had an immense house, tonight, little sweetheart, & turned away several hundred—no seats for them” [MTL 4: 17].

January 11 Tuesday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Union Place Hall, West Troy, New York.

Note: Sam’s next two letters to Livy, No.s 174-5, after West Troy and Rondout lectures are lost [MTL 4: 20n10].  

January 12 Wednesday – Clemens lectured (“Savages”) in Rondout, New York.

January 13 Thursday – Sam wrote from Cambridge, New York to Livy about quitting smoking—did she really want him to?

“I shall treat smoking just exactly as I would treat the forefinger of my left hand: If you asked me in all seriousness to cut that finger off…I give you my word I would cut it off” [MTL 4: 21]. Note: Presented in this way, how could Livy ask Sam to quit smoking?

In the evening, Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Hubbard Hall, Cambridge, New York [MTPO].

January 14 Friday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Mechanic’s Hall, Utica, New York [MTPO].

Sam wrote from Troy, New York to Livy. Neither poor weather nor a fire in the lecture hall stopped Sam from his lecture. He was upset that the Troy Daily Times had published his Cambridge lecture of the night before. At 7 a fire broke out in the lecture hall.

January 15 Saturday – Sam wrote after midnight from the Baggs Hotel in Utica, New York to Livy [Powers, MT A Life 280].

“We had a noble house to-night (Oh, it is bitter, bitter cold & blustery!)—the largest of the season, they believe, though they cannot tell till they count the tickets to-morrow.”

Sam also wrote his sister, Pamela. He’d sent money for her and Annie to come for his wedding, plus support money for his mother, whom he did not want making the trip during the winter.

January 17 Monday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Baldwinsville, New York [MTPO].

January 18 Tuesday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Ogdensburg, NY [MTPO]. He left Buffalo at 4 PM

January 19 Wednesday – Sam lectured at the Normal School Chapel, Fredonia, New York [MTPO]. The Fredonia Censor reported on Jan. 26 of this lecture:

January 20 Thursday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Hornell Library, Hornellsville, New York. Sam wrote before the lecture from Hornellsville to Livy.

January 21 Friday – Sam lectured (“Savages”) in Institute Hall, Jamestown, New York, and immediately made the trip to Elmira to prepare for his wedding [MTL 4: 33n1]. Note: Reigstad writes that the tour “ended with a whimper. / He admitted to being tired for his last lecture stop, and the Jamestown Journal reports were unflattering” [93]. During the three-month lecture tour, Clemens sent over 20 stories to the Buffalo Express [94].

January 22 Saturday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss. He had begun a book about Noah’s Ark, which was never completed. He also wrote that he was “prosecuting Webb in the N.Y. courts” to regain the copyright of the Jumping Frog book, which Charles Webb had entered in his own name. He intended then to break up the plates “& prepare a new vol.

January 26 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Jim Gillis, evidently answering Jim’s letter about the good ol’ days at Angels Camp.

January 28 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss, happy with the $4,000 due him for his latest royalties from Innocents Abroad.

“But $4,000 is pretty gorgeous. One don’t pick that up often, with a book. It is the next best thing to lecturing….I’ll back you against any publisher in America, Bliss—or elsewhere” [MTL 4: 40-1].

To date, Sam had totaled royalties of about $7,404 [MTL 4: 42n5].

January 29 Saturday – Sam’s article, “Around the World Letter No. 8,” subtitled, “Dining with a Cannibal,” was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 144].

February 2 Wednesday – Samuel L. Clemens married Olivia Louise Langdon. Congregational ministers Joseph Twichell and Thomas K. Beecher performed the ceremony at 7 PM.

February 3 Thursday – The newlyweds left in a private railroad car for their new home in Buffalo. On the train Sam entertained by singing an old British folk ballad that his niece Annie Moffett did not think proper for the occasion. The song would appear in different versions in HF and P&P.

February 6 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo, New York to William “Will” Bowen:

My First, & Oldest & Dearest Friend,

February 7 Monday – Joseph and Harmony Twichell responded to Sam’s telegram for them to visit; they arrived in Buffalo this day [MTL 4: 66].

Mary Mason Fairbanks’ account of the Clemens wedding ran in the Cleveland Herald. Though the event was mentioned in many newspapers, her account is the fullest, since she was in attendance.