Life in Buffalo: Day By Day

February 18 Friday – Sam attended David Ross Locke’s lecture in Buffalo for the Woman’s Suffrage Association on “The Struggles of a Conservative with the Woman Question.” Sam published a review in the Buffalo Express on Feb. 19 [Reigstad, email 11 May 2013].

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

“The Coming Man”
“A Book Review”
“The Tone-Imparting Committee”
“The Danger of Lying in Bed”
“One of Mankind’s Bores”
“A Falsehood”
“The Indignity Put Upon the Remains of George Holland by the Rev. Mr. Sabine” [Schmidt].

February 19 Saturday – The Hartford Courant reported that the 60,000 copy of Innocents Abroad had been printed, some 45,000 sold [MTL 4: 78n1]. An article attributed to Sam, “Nasby’s Lecture,” was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 153].

The San Francisco News-Letter, “Town Crier” page, carried a snide blurb about Sam’s marriage:

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 2 Thursday – Sam arrived in Washington, D.C. and registered at the Ebbitt House, where his partner Josephus Larned was staying. Sam had returned to the capitol on the unfinished business of the legislation for Tennessee. As one of the executors to Jervis Langdon’s estate, Sam wanted to get the bill passed that had failed in July 1870.

February 20 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Joel Benton (1832-1911), former owner of the Amenia Times. Benton wanted to sell the Buffalo Express some European letters. Sam said the Express did not need European letters [MTL 4: 73-4]. Sam and Livy again teamed up on a letter written to Livy’s mother . Sam teased Livy about her cooking and housekeeping:

February 21 Tuesday – Petroleum V. Nasby, “enormously fat & handsome,” stopped by.

“We had a pleasant talk but I couldn’t offer him the hospitalities because my wife is very seriously ill & the house is full of nurses & doctors” [MTL 4: 335-6 in letter to Redpath the next day].

February 22 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Orion. “Livy is very, very slowly & slightly improving, but it is not possible to say whether she is out of danger…” [MTL 4: 334].

February 23 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Elisha Bliss, responding to his two letters (one now lost; see Feb. 15 for the other).

Friend Bliss—

Why bless your soul, I never have time to write letters these days—takes all my time to carry on the honey-moon. I would like to talk to Mrs Bliss [Amelia Bliss] two or three or four hours about my wife now, if she could stand it——she used to stand it very well when I was at your house.

February 23 Thursday – Edson C. Chick wrote from offices of The Aldine, NYC to send copies of the March issue. “Having made the announcement of portrait we are anxious for copy…Thanks for photograph…P.S. Bret Harte & John Hay will do something for us soon” [MTP]. Note: The Aldine, a monthly arts journal published in New York in the 1800s.

February 24 Thursday – Sam wrote a eulogy for Anson Burlingame, which ran in the Buffalo Express the following day.

February 25 Friday – Sam’s eulogy for “Anson Burlingame,” was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 153]. Sam said of the man who helped him get the scoop on the Hornet disaster:

February 25 Saturday – Bret and Anna Harte and their two sons, Woodie and Frankie, arrived in Boston around 11 AM. A crowd was at the train station to welcome Harte, including 33-year-old William Dean Howells, assistant editor of the Atlantic under James T. Fields.

February 26 or 27 Monday – Sam telegraphed from Buffalo to Edson C. Chick, managing editor of the Aldine, a graphic arts and literary magazine published by James Sutton & Co. of New York (1871-3). Sam had sent a portrait of himself but not an autobiographical sketch, which Sam felt was “too long, as it stands, to be modest” [MTL 4: 337].

February 26 Saturday – Sam & Livy wrote from Buffalo to Jervis Langdon.

February 27 Monday – Edson C. Chick wrote from offices of The Aldine: “Dr. Mark / Telegram recd. Many Many thanks. [I] enclose manuscript. You have helped me out of my difficulty like a ‘big hearted boatman’ as you are…” [MTP].

February 28 Monday – An article attributed to Sam, “The Blondes,” was printed in the Buffalo Express. The article criticized a dancing troupe called the Lydia Thompson’s Blonde Burlesque Troupe.

February 28 Tuesday – W.S. Cassedy wrote from Rosston, Penn. to ask Clemens to read his MS about “the imaginary visit of a China man to this country” [MTP].

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 3 Friday – Livy was coming down with typhoid and wrote Pamela Moffett that she wasn’t feeling well [MTL 4: 327]

February 4 Saturday – Henry W. Sage wrote to Sam seeking a meeting to clear up a misunderstanding with George H. Selkirk and Josephus N. Larned about an interview interrupted [MTP]. Note: Henry W. Sage (1814-1897), father of Dean Sage, mentioned in Sam’s Autobiography as the head of H.W. Sage & Co., which ran a lumber mill on Saginaw Bay.

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

My First, & Oldest & Dearest Friend,

February 6 Monday – Sam telegraphed his plans home and Susan Crane answered by telegram. Then Susan Crane wrote Sam in Washington that Livy was worse—fever, no appetite, unable to sleep. Still, it was not yet urgent [MTL 4: 327].

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.

February 7 Tuesday – In Washington, Sam went to Mathew Brady’s studio and was photographed with David Gray, also staying at the Ebbitt House; and George Alfred Townsend aka “Gath” (1841-1914), another Washington correspondent. (See one of the photos in Muller, p.151; another in Meltzer, p.126.) That evening, while at a dinner at Welcker’s Restaurant Ohio congressman&nbsp