Day By Day Dates

September 8?–29 Thursday – Sam telegraphed his mother in Fredonia. A family pest, Mrs. Melicent S. Holliday (b.1800?), had turned up at Sam’s in Buffalo and, due to Emma Nye’s illness, Sam gave her $50 and sent her on to Fredonia [MTL 4: 193].

September 9 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Orion.

“Do exactly as you please with the [Tennessee] land….I have no time to turn around. A young lady visitor (schoolmate of Livy’s) is dying in the house of typhoid fever.”

Alice Spaulding came to help Livy nurse Emma Nye. The three had been schoolmates [MTL 4: 193].

September 15 Thursday – Sam and Livy wrote from Buffalo to Frank Bliss & Frances T. French, congratulating them on marriage, and regretting that illness in the house prevented them from attending the wedding [MTL 4: 194].

September 17 Saturday – Sam’s article “To the Reader,” with a humorous map of Paris, France Fortifications, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 227]. Budd shows this as “Map of Paris” reprinted with “additional prefatory material” in the Nov. 1870 Galaxy [“Collected” 1012]. See map under Oct. 10 entry.

September 19 Monday – John T. Metcalf wrote from Lansing, Iowa.

My Dear Sir: / I want to read your admirable book (“The Innocents Abroad”) but us poor d——s of country newspaper men can’t afford to buy one. We don’t know your publishers. Can’t we notice or advertise, and thus come into possession of something good for the mind, of a standard heaps of newspaper men want to reach, but you hold so successfully at your service? [MTPO]. Note: Sam sent this on to Bliss.

September 21? Wednesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss that he’d written to Elisha’s son, Frank, and that Sam had finished the 7 or 8 chapter of Roughing It this day [MTL 4: 196].

September 22 Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss about the burlesque map of “Fortifications of Paris,” he’d published in the Express. Sam suggested they use the map in posters for Innocents [MTL 4: 198].

September 24 Saturday – Sam wrote from Buffalo, a letter of introduction for Livy to a local attorney, Franklin D. Locke, asking him to

“…make valid the accompanying power of attorney. It will be a very great favor if you can save her the necessity of getting out of the carriage facing the terrors of the law in your awe-inspiring den” [MTL 4: 200].

September 26 Monday – Vice President “Smiling” Schulyer Colfax wrote to laugh at Sam’s “Fortifications of Paris” map and also Sam’s “masterpiece…your lightning rod article” (“Political Economy” in Galaxy) [MTP].

September 28? Wednesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Joe Goodman, previewing his coming new book (RI) [MTL 4: 201].

September 29 Thursday – Emma Nye died in the morning from typhoid fever [MTL 4: 192-3n1]. That night her body was transported to Elmira and the Spaulding home. She was buried the following day in the Second Street Cemetery [Reigstad 173]. Sam & Livy did not make the trip to Elmira, since Livy was seven months pregnant and worn out from nursing her friend [MTL 4: 198n3].

October – In the Galaxy for this month – MARK TWAIN’S MEMORANDA – Included:

“The Reception at the President’s”
“Goldsmith’s Friend Abroad Again, Letters I – IV”
“Curious Relic For Sale”
“Science vs. Luck”
“Favors from Correspondents”
Short miscellaneous items – includes items on Obituary, Johnny Skae, Baby, How Is This for High?, Obituary, Some Other Favors [Schmidt].

October 1 Saturday – Sam’s article, “At the President’s Reception,” which had appeared in the October issue of the Galaxy, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 229].

October 4 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Fredonia, New York to James Redpath concerning reprints and use of the Paris map, asking Redpath to “get up a bargain” with Louis Prang (1824-1909), a well-known map maker [MTL 4: 201-4].

October 5 Wednesday – The Fredonia Censor for this date reported Sam and Livy’s visit.

Samuel S. Clemens (Mark Twain) and wife are spending a few days with his mother and sister, who came here to reside last spring. He is engaged in preparing another work for the press.—His “Innocents Abroad” has had a sale of over 70,000. Its great popularity will prepare the way for an extensive sale of the book which he is now writing.

October 8 Saturday – Sam’s article, “Curious Relic for Sale,” which had appeared in the October edition of the Galaxy, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 233].

October 8–13? Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss, about Hubert Howe Bancroft, West Coast agent for Innocents Abroad.

October 9 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to James Redpath. He’d given up putting the additions on his Paris map, since it had been printed and reprinted several times and he’d not copyrighted it. Sam began to think about lecturing again [MTL 4: 206].

October 10? Monday – Sam wrote to Ainsworth R. Spofford, on his “Fortifications of Paris” map which ran in the Buffalo Express Sat. Sept. 17:

Mr. Spofford, could I get you to preserve this work of art among the geographical treasures of the Congressional Library?

Yrs Truly

Mark Twain.

October 11 Tuesday – Robert Shelton Mackenzie (1809-1881), editor of the Phila. Press wrote: “You will see by the enclosed, which I had much pleasure in writing, as far as your book [IA] is concerned, that you are somewhat appreciated in our Quaker City. / Yours…” [MTP]. MacKenzie’s review is in the file; it praises Twain as “one of the three great living American prose humorists” the others being Harte and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

October 13 Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Mary Mason Fairbanks. Mary’s daughter Alice (“Alie”) was engaged. Sam wanted Mary to visit. Charles Langdon had married Ida B. Clark on Oct. 12, but Sam was too busy to go and Livy was unable [MTL 4: 208-9].

Sam also wrote Elisha Bliss:

October 15 Saturday – “Mark Twain – His Map and Fortifications of Paris” was reprinted in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 238].

October 18 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Frank Church, editor of Galaxy. Sam sent a doodled “portrait” of King William of Prussia, parodying the use of portraits in the magazine [MTL 4: 210].

October 19 Wednesday – In Buffalo, Clemens wrote to Francis P. Church:

      I am so stupid. I forgot that it will be two or three weeks before I can see whether you are going to want that portrait & burlesque or not—so you must sit right down & write me even if you have to delay your dinner a minute or two. Will you?

October 20 Thursday – An earthquake struck Buffalo at about 5 p.m., and “lasted only thirty or fourty seconds. Church steeples and chandeliers swayed. Walls of buildings shook, windows shattered, and furniture moved across floors” [Reigstad 171].

October 21 Friday – An article attributed to Sam, “The Libel Suit,” was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 246].

Mortimer Neal Thomson (Q.K. Philander Doesticks, P.B.) wrote from NY.

I don’t believe you’ve forgotten me, and I don’t want you to put on airs and pretend you have, just because I’m going to remind you of a promise.