Stormfield - Day By Day

July 10 Friday – Sam’s guestbook   has the following entries (also noted in IVL TS 54):

Name Address Date Remarks

Mrs. Quick Plainfield, N.J. July 10-17 Remained until

Dorothy Quick M.A.  “        “        “   “  “ “ -17       July 18

Frances Paine Redding, Conn.   “  “ “ -17

July 10 Saturday — Joe and Harmony Twichell finished a two-day stay at Stormfield.

July 11 Saturday – The New York Times, “Topics of the Week,” p. BR385, led off with the following paragraph about Elinor Glyn and Mark Twain:

July 11 Sunday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a Stormfield picture postcard to Dorothy Quick.

July 12 Monday — Anne-Netta Brownlee wrote from Youngstown, Ohio, a lengthy letter of admiration in which she discusses articles on Twain and his books. The letter is copied by a different hand and both are in the file [MTP].

Eugene T. Skinkle wrote to Sam with questions about CS. Sam’s reply was published in the Chicago Tribune of 24 Apr. 1910; a copy from that paper in the file is only: “July 16/09 / Sir: / YES, I done it. M.T.” [MTP]

July 13 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Mary B. Rogers (Mrs. H.H. Rogers, Jr.).

July 14 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam finished the mislaid July 5 letter to Dorothy Sturgis.

TEN DAYS LATER

It has long been my impression that this letter went to the mail at the time it was written. But that was a mistake. It got mislaid, & had turned up by accident this morning.

July 14 Wednesday — Isabel Ashcroft (Lyon) returned from her honeymoon to respond to the attachment Clemens had placed on her house, “The Lobster Pot.” The New York Times, p. 4, July 15, reported on the conflict and her return. The Ashcrofts had sailed from the US on June 8.

WANTS MARK TWAIN TO EXPLAIN TO HER

Mrs. Ashcroft Hurries Back from Her Honeymoon

Abroad to Find Out About $4,000 Suit.

FORMERLY HIS SECRETARY

July 15 Thursday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally in Camp Esta-Naula East Sebago, Maine.

July 16 Monday – N.Y.C. 10 a.m. Sam wrote to Isabel V. Lyon in Dublin, N.H. 

“I have just arrived. Please thank my nephew Sam Moffett for me, & say I wonder at his sending a valuable letter to ‘Redding,’ a place I have no recollection of ever having heard of in my life. Preserve his statistics. / With love to Jean” [MTP].

July 16 Thursday – Jeanne E. Wier for the Nevada Historical Society wrote to inform Sam that he’d unanimously been given honorary membership in their annual meeting on June 8. She added that she felt RI was the best history of Nevada yet written [MTP].

Clemens A.D. for this day is listed by MTP.  

July 16 Friday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a one-liner to Eugene T. Skinkle: “Sir: YES, I done it. / M.T.” [MTP: Chicago Tribune, 24 April 1910]. Note: Skinkle published a book, Practical Ice Making and Refrigeration (1897). See July 12. Sam answered Skinkle’s questions about CS; it is noted the Chicago paper carried this but three days after his death. Jean wrote on her father’s reply: Mr.

July 17 Friday – Frank N. Doubleday for Doubleday, Page & Co. wrote to Sam that he was sending “some books for your library at Redding.” He declined the invitation from Miss Lyon to spend a night but he and the wife were taking a steamer for France next Tuesday. He offered to send their “bang-up photographer,” Mr. A.R. Dugmore, to take colored pictures of the Redding house [MTP].

July 17 Saturday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote three notes to unidentified persons authorizing Albert B. Paine to take the contents of Sam’s safety deposit box. The second note survives [MTP: AAA-Anderson Galleries catalog 4346, Nov, 11-12 Nov. 1937, item 89]. Note: Hill points out that Paine was made manager of Clemens’ business affairs on this day, and “had the restrictions removed from his use of unpublished material in his biography” [242]. See also July 24,

July 18 Saturday – Sam’s guestbook   shows the following entry (also noted in IVL TS 54):

Name Address Date Remarks

Margery Hamilton Clinton 29 (?) East 57th, New York July 18-24 (?) *

* Sam added the following in the Remarks column next to Margery’s entry:

July 18 Sunday - In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Clara:

Clärchen dear Jean is a surprise & a wonder. She has plenty of wisdom, judgment, penetration, practical good sense—like her mother—& character, courage, definiteness, decision; also goodness, a humane spirit, charity, kindliness, pity; industry, perseverance, intelligence, a clean mind, a clean soul, dignity, honesty, truthfulness, high ideals, loyalty, faithfulness to duty—she is everything that Miss Lyon isn’t.

July 19 Monday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Eric L. Pape in Gloucester, Mass..

Dear Mr. Pape, / By command of physicians, I am not to stir outside the limits of this farm for the next half year to come. Otherwise I would be there on the 4th of August and do my share in welcoming the President.

July – Sometime during the month a lawn party was held by the Mark Twain Library Association at Harry A. Lounsbury’s home. Another party at the same location was held in August [MT Library minutes copied by Tenney, Nov. 15, 1981].

Amo Umbstaetter and Elizabeth Atwood wrote from Lovell, Maine to thank Sam for his letter and autographs. Signed, “Your little friends” [MTP].

July — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Charlotte Teller.

July 2 Thursday – Sam and Albert B. Paine left Boston at 8 a.m. for N.Y. [June 29 and July 2 to Quick]. Later, in Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to daughter Jean.  

July 2 Friday — Sam’s new guestbook:

July 20 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to the July 7 request by Edward Verrall Lucas.

Dear Lucy: / My permission to include the Tom Sawyer extract in your series, you have, straight from the bat, as the worldlings say. My secretary will ask the Harpers to add their permission, & forward it to the Mac Millans or to you.

Love & all good wishes to you & to Punch & that dear little fairy./  Sincerely Yours … [MTP].

July 20 Tuesday — In Redding, Conn. Charles T. Lark, had decided he needed Isabel Lyon’s Signature on a lease agreement which would legalize the Sept. 1 date for her to leave. This time accompanied by Clara Clemens, he returned to the Lobster Pot to secure Lyon’s signature. Clara wrote an account of the meeting:

CLARA’S NARRATIVE.

[in Clara L.. Clemens’s hand:|

July 22 Wednesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Margery H. Clinton at 39 E. 57   N.Y.C.

July 23 Thursday – George M. Robinson, Clara’s tour manager, wrote to Isabel Lyon c/o Clemens: “Will you kindly send me a check for $75., in accordance with our understanding. I am sending out two thousand circulars with letters enclosed. Will send you a copy of the circular to-morrow. I think it a vast improvement on last year’s issue” [MTP].