Sam Clemens believed he had found respectability, fame, wealth and success. He married into wealth and a woman he would love the rest of his life. His father-in-law had purchased a mansion for him and part ownership in a newspaper. But he chafed at the daily grind. There had been only one job in his life he truly enjoyed, being a river boat pilot. Also, a number of problems and tragedies struck. Olivia became pregnant, but was devastated when her father was diagnosed with stomach cancer and died on Aug. 6, 1870: Emma Nye, a dear friend of Olivia’s who was visiting, was stricken with typhoid fever and died in their home Sept. 29: Finally, their son, Langdon, was born prematurely Nov. 7, frail and sickly, and Olivia fell ill with typhoid herself.
Life in Buffalo: Day By Day
Midwest Lecture Tour – Visits to Elmira & Hartford – Sam & Livy Engaged - Sam Met William Dean Howells – Innocents Abroad a Great Success - Buffalo Newspaper Purchased with Jervis Langdon’s help – Grueling Lecture Schedule
1869 – Sometime during the year Clemens took out a $10,000 life insurance policy with Continental Life Ins. Co of Hartford [MTP]. Note: see June 16, 1877.
August 4 Wednesday – Sam and the Langdons took a three day trip to Niagara Falls and stayed at the Cataract House Hotel. Also along were Charles J. Langdon and his fiancée Ida Clark, he parents, as well as Livy’s friend Fidele Brooks and husband Henry Brooks and son of New York, and neighbors of the Langdons, Dr. Henry Sayles and wife Emma Sayles. Cousin A. Langdon was also in the hotel. The trip allowed Jervis to inspect the finances of the nearby Buffalo Express.
August 5 Thursday – At Niagara Falls, NY. Sometime during the 3 day stay Jervis Langdon and Sam made a side trip to Buffalo, where Jervis likely visited the branch of his coal company at 221 Main Street, as well as a waterfront coal-yard operation. The pair also searched records in the Buffalo Express office to “confirm the soundness of their upcoming investment.” A few days later (Aug. 14), Twain complained about ‘the bore of wading through the books & getting up balance sheets’” [Reigstad 60-61]. Note: the Aug. 14 letter was to Mary Mason and Abel W. Fairbanks: “As soon as Mr.
August 6 Friday – The last day of the business/pleasure trip to Niagara Falls.
August 7 Saturday – Sam accompanied the Langdon family on a return trip to Elmira. By Sunday AM he was back in Buffalo [Reigstad 62].
The San Francisco Evening Bulletin, p.1, ran a positive review of IA, observing that “America has, within the past few years, developed a new type of humor.”
August 8 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Livy, apologizing for hurting her and finishing the letter at 9 PM. During this period, Sam was shuttling between Elmira and Buffalo, scrutinizing the books and balance sheets of the Express. Sam wrote “my obligations to him [Jervis] almost overshadow my obligations to Charley, now…” Jervis Langdon had advanced half of the purchase price for the Express and guaranteed the balance [MTL 3: 289-91]. Following this letter, ten letters (Livy’s numbers 91-100), probably daily from Aug. 9 to 18, are lost [MTL 3: 290n1].
August 11 Wednesday – Sam was in Elmira and first saw the published book, Innocents Abroad. He
signed a gilt-edge copy for Livy [MTL 3: 291-2].
The Buffalo Period
August 12 Thursday – The first date showing Sam living in Buffalo. Sam replied from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss’ of July 30.
August 13 Friday – Sam received a letter from John Slee, agent for the Anthracite Coal Association in Buffalo, informing him that Jervis Langdon’s check was on the way, and that Slee would add another check totaling $12,500. The papers might be exercised that day [MTL 3: 294n2]. Note: Jervis Langdon’s check for $12,500 plus Twain’s $2,500 went toward the down payment with Langdon guaranteeing the balance.
August 14 Saturday – At the law offices of Bowen & Rogers, 28 Erie Street, papers were signed on the purchase of Sam’s one-third interest in the Buffalo Express, 14 East Swan Street [Reigstad 37]. Note: see pictures of the Express building in Reigstad 40-41.
August 15 Sunday – Sam officially became a writing editor of the Express, offering sketches and editorials. This began a period of eighteen months in Buffalo that marked a transition from sometime journalist to celebrated author.
Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss, and Whitelaw Reid about his new book:
August 16 Monday – Lydia Thompson’s Blonde Burlesque Troupe opened this evening at the Academy of Music in Buffalo. “A standing-room-only throng at the opera house waited three hours for the featured sparring exhibition between Ned ‘The Irish Giant’ O’Baldwin and Mike McCoole to finally begin” [Reigstad 35]. Did Clemens attend this performance of the Blondes? Perhaps. He must have seen it sometime because he published a story on the act in the Express on Feb. 28, 1870.
August 17 Tuesday – “Removal of the Capital,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 7]. Note: see also Feb. 16, 1864.
August 18 Wednesday – “Lady Byron – Mrs. Stowe’s Revelations,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 8].
August 19 Thursday – “Inspired Humor,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 9].
From the Buffalo Express “People and Things Columns” by Mark Twain:
· One of those venerable parties, a pre-Adamite man, has been dug up from a depth of ninety-eight feet, in Alabama. He was of prodigious stature, and is supposed by savans to have existed twelve thousand years ago. Life was entirely extinct when they got him out.
August 20 Friday – Sam, in Buffalo, began a letter at nearly 2 AM to his sister Pamela. He’d sent his luggage to St. Louis on June 24, but never made the trip, so apologized. With his wedding planned for Christmastime or New Year’s, Sam felt for his mother, and sister to travel across the country would be “equivalent to murder & arson & everything else,” not to mention a cost of some $500.
August 21 Saturday – Sam’s first signed sketch, “A Day at Niagara,” appeared in the Buffalo Express. Also an introductory piece he titled, “Salutatory”:
I shall always confine myself to the truth, except when it is attended with inconvenience.
I shall not write any poetry, unless I conceive a spite against the subscribers.
I shall not often meddle with politics, because we have a political editor who is already excellent, and only needs to serve a term in the penitentiary to be perfect [McCullough 5].
August 23 Monday – “Uncriminal Victims,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 18].
From the Buffalo Express “People and Things Columns” by Mark Twain:
· Children in Iowa bite rattlesnakes in order to prevent toothache. Probably the cure would be more permanent if the rattlesnakes bit the children.
August 24 Tuesday – “The Byron Scandal,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 19].
From the Buffalo Express “People and Things Columns” by Mark Twain:
· The Blondes will expose themselves in Elmira to-night.
· Peach kernels contain hydrocyanic (or prussic) acid, and are dangerous nutriment. Fifteen hundred of them taken on an empty stomach will kill a man.
August 25 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Charles Warren Stoddard, poet and contributor to the San Francisco Overland Monthly. Stoddard became Sam’s personal secretary/companion in London in 1872.
Dear Charlie: / Thank you heartily for all your good wishes—& you must accept of mine in return. I have written Bret that we must have the “Overland”—see that he sends it, will you?
August 26 Thursday – Sam finished a letter of Aug. 25 from Buffalo to Livy of his plans to be home in Elmira about 8 PM Friday. He enclosed notices of the Innocents Abroad [MTL 3: 322-3].
“Only a Nigger,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 22].
August 27 Friday – Whitelaw Reid of the New York Tribune published the first review of Innocents by a metropolitan daily, a positive and even-handed appraisal [MTL 3: 343n1; Powers, MT A Life 275]. Any good word from the Tribune was momentous and important to Sam.
August 28 Saturday – Sam’s article “English Festivities. And Minor Matters. Fishing” appeared in the Express [McCullough 23].
September – Sam wrote an untitled burlesque letter from Lord Byron to Mark Twain, which was published posthumously [Camfield, bibliog.]. The impetus for the letter was no doubt Harriet Beecher Stowe’s bombshell article in the Atlantic, “The True Story of Lady Byron’s Life,” which exposed an affair by Lord Byron with his half sister, Augusta Leigh. Significantly, the article ran during James T. Fields’ (1817-1881) European vacation, with Howells in charge. This was a clear blunder, one of the few by Howells, and probably an attempt to placate Stowe.