Life in Buffalo: Day By Day

August 7 Sunday – from Elmira Sam wrote a eulogy for Jervis Langdon, and sent it to Josephus N. Larned, his partner on the Express, for use in that newspaper [MTL 4: 181-2].

August 8 Monday – Jervis Langdon’s funeral. His obituary was printed in the Buffalo Express, incorporating Sam’s eulogy [McCullough 224]. The Mayor of Elmira, John Arnot (1789-1873), requested that all local businesses close for two hours during the funeral [MTL 4: 183].

Sam telegraphed Elisha Bliss:

“Receipt of your check for two thousand dollars is here—hereby acknowledged. Saml L Clemens” [MTPO].

August 11 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss: “This is a house of mourning, now. My wife is nearly broken down with grief & watching.” In a lighter note, he recalled the exchange of letters he had with “that publisher,” probably the D. Appleton & Co.

August 13 Saturday – Sam wrote from Elmira to George L. Hutchings, declining to lecture.

“I haven’t the slightest idea of ever talking again on a platform. Congratulate me on my emancipation!” [MTL 5: 686].

August 17 or 24 Wednesday –Sam wrote from Elmira or Buffalo to his sister Pamela Moffett.

August 21 Sunday – In the evening, Thomas K. Beecher gave a memorial tribute to Jervis Langdon in Elmira’s Opera House [MTL 4: 182n1]. Sam & Livy probably stayed in Elmira until the day after the memorial, and then returned to Buffalo [MTL 4: 185].

August 22 Monday – O.B. Jabbers wrote on Northern Tier Gazette letterhead, Troy, Pa. “Enclosed find an atrocity recently printed at this office to be distributed to the children and parents of the aforesaid school [no school mentioned].The undersigned line touched my feelings as a red hot poker would a sleeping cat” [MTP]. No article in file.

August 23 Tuesday – “Colonel” Alexander Curran Walker (1816-1883) wrote from McBean, Ga.

August 25 Thursday – Sam’s article “Domestic Missionaries Wanted” first ran in the Buffalo Express [Budd, “Collected” 1011].

August 30 Tuesday – How do rumors get started? Here’s one from the Brooklyn Eagle p.4 of this date:

“Dr. Clemens, a brother of ‘Mark Twain,’ is a practicing physician in Louisville.”

Thomas Swift, M.D.  wrote from Hartford to Clemens.

“HOGWASH”

     In a late number of the Galaxy you give an interesting specimen of this class of literature with an expressed desire for Some more.

August 31 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to his sister Pamela A. Moffett:

“We’re getting along tolerably well. Mother is here, & Miss Emma Nye. Livy cannot sleep, since her father’s death—but I give her a narcotic every night & make her.”

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

“Political Economy”
“John Chinaman in New York”
“The Noble Red Man”
“A Royal Compliment”
“The Approaching Epidemic”
“Favors from Correspondents”
Short miscellaneous – included items on Beef Contract, Funeral, Obituary, Enigma [Schmidt].

September 2 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Orion. Sam was so grateful for Orion’s memorandum books on their trip to Nevada, that he promised him $1,000 from royalties [MTL 4: 186].

September 4 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss.

“During the past week have written first four chapters…[of Roughing It]. We shall sell 90,000 copies the first 12 months” [MTL 4: 190]. Note: Sam liked it. It did sell well, some 75,000 copies the first year.

September 5 Monday – In Buffalo, Sam wrote a short note to Francis P. Church of the Galaxy:

“Friend Church— / Received yr. Check for $334, full payment for July & Sept. Sent the MS.S. for Oct. yesterday, to you. Yrs ever” [MTP, drop-in letters].

Ella Wolcott (b.1828) wrote to seek publishing help for a young man, Frank Huntington, who was traveling and studying in Germany [MTP].

September 7 Wednesday – Sam replied from Buffalo to the Sept. 6 of Ella Wolcott, a friend of the Langdons, declining verse from a friend of hers in Europe. He also wrote that Emma Nye had a “consuming fever—of a typhoid type.” In fact, it was typhoid [MTL 4: 191].

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].