Life in Buffalo: Day By Day

September 30 Thursday – “The Ticket—Explanation” a signed article ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 59]. Note: this referred to by Reigstad in Sept. 29 entry.

September 4 Saturday – Sam’s story of comic mayhem, “Journalism in Tennessee,” was printed in the Express. It was about Mark Twain taking a journalism job in Tennessee as associate editor of the Morning Glory and Johnson County War-Whoop and being shot at so much he decided frontier journalism wasn’t for him [Wilson 37]. A second article by the same name, “The Byron Scandal,” and a follow up article, “The Byron Question” are attributed to Sam [McCullough 28-30].

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 6 Monday – Sam wrote from Buffalo (“In Bed Monday Night”) to Livy about a flap over poetry/song with George W. Elliott, who Sam referred to as the “Dead Canary.”

“[The] Cincinnati, Toledo & other western papers speak as highly of the book as do the New York & Philadelphia papers” [MTL 3: 335-7].

September 7 Tuesday – Another article attributed to Sam ran in the Express: “More Byron Scandal.”

“The aching desire that some people have for notoriety, to be talked about, even to be cursed rather than not to be noticed at all, can be the only possible excuse that I can imagine for this woman to lug into view family secrets in which the world can find nothing but the nastiest interest” [McCullough 37].

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 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Henry M. Crane about lecturing:

“No, your ‘persistence’ don’t annoy me a bit—it is complimentary to me. I am only going to lecture till the middle of January, anyhow.”

Sam noted that his wedding had been postponed until the first week in February, due to lecture dates he was unable to cancel. Sam’s intention at this point was to “get out of the lecture-field forever” [MTL 3: 346-7].

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 Thursday – “Butler on the Byron Scandal,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Express [McCullough 38].

Sam finished the letter to Livy, begun the previous day. He wrote about Feb. 4 being the wedding date (it turned out to be Feb. 2,) his writing to Redpath of that fact, and about Charles Langdon, who had left for a trip around the world [MTL 3: 348-9].

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].