Hartford House: Day By Day

April 19 through May 1 Saturday – The Gilded Age play was performed at Boston’s Globe Theater, John T. Raymond in the lead role as Colonel Mayberry Sellers of Hawkeye, Missouri. Howells attended on May 1 [MTL 6: 475n2].

April 19 Wednesday – Lemuel H. Wilson wrote to Sam, thanking him again for the picture rec’d a year before and enclosing sample “articles” which he’d just acquired the patent on [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the letter, “Lot of toilet articles named for me!”

April 19 Thursday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, who had sent Sam a letter to present to President Hayes when Sam went to Washington. This letter may have been part of the effort to secure a consulship for Charles Warren Stoddard that the two men had discussed [MTLE 2: 44].

April 2 Friday – Sam wrote a $9.08 check to D.R. Woodford, coal and hay dealer in Hartford [MTP].

Ladislaus William Madarasz (1854-1900) wrote from Poughkeepsie, N.Y. to Sam:

April 2 Sunday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote a short note to Sam, sending a song (now unidentified) from Francis Boott (1813-1904), written “in a key suitable for your voice” [MTHL 1: 128]. Note: Boott composed at times under the pseudonym “Telford.”

April 2 Monday – In Washington, D.C, Bret Harte wrote to Sam. Duckett calls the salutation “extremely formal.” Harte had received an offer from John Thomson Ford (1829-1894) who owned theatres in Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, about the play Ah Sin. Harte outlined the offer and asked Sam to telegram him his answer. He emphasized to Sam that the play was “ours” [Duckett 141-2]. Note: Sam accepted the offer.

April 20 Tuesday – Sam returned home to Hartford.

April 21 Wednesday – Sam wrote a $23.00 check to F. Bubser [MTP].

April 22 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Dean Sage to thank him for the visit and to explain why his thanks were somewhat delayed. “Howells & I fooled around all day & never got to the Centennial at all, though we made forty idiotic attempts to accomplish it” [MTL 6: 452].

April 22 Saturday – Sam wrote a short note from Hartford to Howells.

“You’ll see per enclosed slip that I appear for the first time on the stage [in a play] next Wednesday. You & Mrs. H. come down & you shall skip in free” [MTLE 1: 46]. Note: the play, The Loan of a Lover, on Wednesday, 26 April, and Thursday, 27 April.

From Lilly Warner’s diary:

April 23 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Mary Mason Fairbanks who chided him for not writing. Sam gave it back in spades for her not visiting when she was “3 or 4 hours” by train from them. Sam was still talking about a Mississippi River trip, now he hoped in May or June, and then he’d “try to stop a night in Cleveland en route.” He told of going to Boston to see the Concord Centennial but not seeing it; and the Beecher trial.

April 23 Monday – Sam wrote a card from Hartford to Susan Crane, asking if she would stay in Hartford with Livy while he went May 10 “off on a sea voyage, to be gone till toward the end of that month” [MTLE 2: 45].

Sam then left for New York. He arrived at 6 PM and stayed at the St. James Hotel. Dating a note “Early Bedtime” he wrote to Livy:

April 24 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells about an actor, Daniel H. Harkins, who had dropped by to ask Sam to write up a play that Harkins had thought up over the past few years. Sam thought the play a good idea but referred him to Howells [MTL 6: 458-9].

April 24 Monday – Sam wrote to Orion and Mollie Clemens, sending a check for three months.

“Livy is only about customarily well—that is to say, in rather indifferent strength. As I don’t enjoy letter writing there being such an awful lot of it to do, I will try to make up with a photograph” [MTPO].

Sam also wrote to an unidentified person who had sent him and Livy wedding invitations.

April 24 Tuesday – Sam left New York and arrived in Baltimore [MTLE 2: 47].

April 25 Sunday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Jane Clemens  and sister Pamela Moffett. Sam had received the announcement from his niece, Annie Moffett of an engagement to Charles Webster. Sam had also received a letter from his mother urging him to encourage Orion.

April 25 Tuesday – From the Hartford Courant, page two:

Mark Twain’s new book, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” is ready to issue, but the publication has been put off for the present in order that copyright may be secured in England by simultaneous publication there and here. The English edition has suffered unavoidable delay. [Note: On Apr. 27 the Boston Globe ran the identical article, without credit to the Courant (“Table Gossip,” p3)].

April 25? Wednesday – This is the date Sam wrote in his Apr. 17 letter to Mary Fairbanks that he would be in Washington to oversee rehearsals for Ah Sin. He had hoped to take Livy and “remain in Washington & Baltimore till the middle of May…” but Sam went alone [MTLE 2: 41].

April 26 Monday – Sam wrote to Louis J. Jennings (1836-1893), editor of the New York Times [MTL 6: 464]. Sam included an article he wrote entitled, “Proposed Shakespearean Memorial.” The article encouraged American subscription to the memorial. Charles Edward Flower (1830-1892), a wealthy brewer of Stratford, England, had proposed the memorial and was probably the “English friend” Sam referred to. The article was published on Apr.

April 26 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to George Bentley, London publisher of the Temple Bar, who had asked for sketches when Sam met him with Joaquin Miller. Sam sent a sketch, “Carnival of Crime” that missed the deadline for the May issue of the Atlantic [MTLE 1: 48].

April 26 Thursday – Sam wrote a very long and extraordinary letter (32 pages MS.) from Guy’s Hotel in Baltimore to Livy, describing his visit to the automated and palatial estate (“Alexandroffsky”) of Thomas DeKay Winans (1820-1878), an important and wealthy railroad pioneer who had made his money building a railroad with his brother William, and Major George Washington Whistler for Czar Nich

April 27 Tuesday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote Sam that he needed to “get fairly launched” in his story, “Private Theatricals,” before visiting Hartford again. And of the squelched trip to New Orleans:

April 27 Thursday – The play of Apr. 26 was repeated. James T. Fields and wife came from Boston to see Sam play the slow Dutchman, Peter Spuyk in Loan of a Lover  [Clemens to Howells, Apr. 26]. The Fieldses went straight from the train station to the theater. From Annie A. Fields’ diary:

April 27 Friday – Sam had just received another letter from Livy and responded again from Baltimore.

“Livy My Darling, I had a jolly adventure last night with a chap from the ‘Eastern Shore’—you must remind me to tell you about it when I get home. I spent 4 hours in the State Prison to-day, after rehearsal, but it would take a book to hold all I saw & heard” [MTLE 2: 58].

April 28 Wednesday – Josiah G. Holland (1819-1881) for Scribner’s Monthly wrote from NYC: