March 11 Thursday – William and Elinor Howells arrived at Sam and Livy’s at noon for a two-day stay. It was the first meeting of the wives. Livy invited “Mr and Mrs Perkins, and Mammie [dau. Mary Russell Perkins, age 18]—Mr and Mrs Twichell, and Mr and Mrs G. Warner” for dinner [MTL 6: 411-2].
Twichell’s journal: “A most delightful evening with some of the best people in the world” [Yale 66, copy at MTP].
March 11 Saturday – William Dean Howells and son John Howells arrived at the Clemenses for an overnight stay [MTHL 1: 127n1].
Moncure Conway sailed for England with Tom Sawyer MS in hand [Norton 31].
William A. Seaver wrote to Sam:
March 11 Sunday – Sam wrote from Boston to Livy while staying with Howells trying to collaborate on a play.
“We drop back, now to the original proposition—Howells to write the play, dropping in the skeleton of Orm’s speeches, I to take him, later, & fill him out. I expect to remain at Parker’s in Boston, tomorrow and return home Tuesday” [MTLE 2: 36].
March 11 Monday – Before this date Sam earned a half-interest after expenses for the Colonel Sellers play. A contract of this date reduced his share to twenty percent [MTPO Notes with Oct. 27, 1876 to Raymond].
March 12 Friday – In the morning, Joe Twichell brought his children to meet the Howellses. In the evening, the gang went to see Charles Perkins and family on Woodland Street (which joined with Farmington Avenue near the Clemens house) [MTL 6: 411-2].
Twichell’s journal: “…the children behaved well” [Yale 66, copy at MTP].
March 12 Sunday – The Clemenses entertained William Dean Howells and son John. In a letter to his father, Howells described his son’s reaction to the Clemens’ home:
March 12 Monday – Hartford taxes on real estate, insurance stock, bank stock, money loaned at interest and merchandise were due by Nov. 1, with the assessed valuation made public the following March. Sam’s valuation was published on this day at $66,650 [MTPO notes with Oct.16, 1876 to Perkins].
March 12 Tuesday – Committee for Bayard Taylor farewell dinner sent an engraved invitation for Apr. 4 [MTP]. Note: Included: Elliot C. Cowdin (1819-1880), Charles Watrous, Algernon S. Sullivan, George Haven Putnam (1844-1930), and Edmund C. Stedman (1833-1908). A program & menu, too large for the env.was likely returned by Clemens.
An unidentified Hartford resident sent Clemens a poem bemoaning the Clemens family’s departure to Europe for a long sojourn [MTP].
March 13 Saturday – The Howellses departed at noon [MTL 6: 411-2]. Joe Twichell dropped in on Sam, hoping the Howellses were still there [MTL 6: 415].
March 13 Monday – Back home in Cambridge Howells wrote thanking Sam for the visit [MTHL 1: 127].
March 13 Tuesday – Sam probably returned home to Hartford [MTLE 2: 36]. He purchased back 1876 issues of The American Architect and Building News, a Boston weekly published by Osgood & Co. The weekly began January 1, 1876. Sam was billed $6 [Gribben 22].
March 13 Wednesday – An entry in Sam’s notebook placed this as the possible date he met with George Lester at the Rossmore Hotel in New York about recovering $23,000 he’d invested in the failed Hartford Accident Insurance Co.. Lester and Sam had been directors, and Senator John P. Jones president of the company. John D. Slee of the Langdon Coal Co. arranged a meeting with Jones, acting as Sam’s agent (see Mar. 26 entry).
March 14 Sunday – In Hartford, Livy and Sam wrote to Olivia Lewis Langdon. Livy wrote a page or two and Sam added a few short lines about wishing that Howells had seen the silver set for baby Clara. Each of their children received such a set from Grandmother Langdon [MTL 6: 411-12].
March 15 Monday – William Dean Howells wrote a short note:
My dear Clemens: /Your own feelings will give you no clew to our enjoyment of the little visit we made you. There never was anything more unalloyed in the way of pleasure—I was even spared the pang of bidding the ladies goodbye.
I’m sorry you’re not coming up to the Aldrich lunch, to which I found myself invited.— Don’t say anything to anybody about the Longfellow book till you hear from me.
March 15 Wednesday ca. – Around this time Sam began a “skeleton story”—a novelette he called A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage, which remained unpublished until the Atlantic re-discovered it and ran it in their July/Aug. issue of 2001!
March 15 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells. He sent a piece for the Atlantic and also simultane-sheets to go to the Canadian Monthly and to Chatto & Windus. He doubted he would go to the Taylor banquet (though he did go) as he would be in Elmira.
March 16 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Howells, responding to William’s Mar. 15 note of thanks for the visit. Sam related Livy’s remark that “Nothing could have been added to that visit to make it more charming, except days.”
March 16 Thursday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to Richard McCloud, attorney and president of the Hartford Knights of St. Patrick. (See Mar. 17 entry, as well as notes on this letter at MTPO on the political machinations alluded to.)
George Vaughan (whom Clemens had called “a fraud”) wrote a postcard to “Arthur Clemens (Mark Twain)”:
March 16 Saturday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam, answering his Mar. 15 letter and submission:
“The new thing you send me is perfectly delicious. It went right home every time. What a fancy you have got! And what sense!….It’s sickening to have you going away” [MTHL 1: 224].
Howells wasn’t certain he would attend the Bayard Taylor banquet on Apr. 4, though he did go. Note: Sam’s submission was “About Magnanimous-Incident Literature.”
March 17 and 18 Monday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam.
March 17 Wednesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Warren Stoddard, the day after receiving a reply to his letter of Feb. 1. Stoddard dislocated and broken his left arm in a riding accident. Sam answered that he’d never before been:
“…bodily hurt…But I had 8 cousins in one family [Lamptons] every devil of whom had enjoyed from one to two broken arms before reaching puberty. Think of it!”
March 17 Friday – Sam’s letter of Mar. 16 to Richard McCloud was read aloud at the Hartford Knights of St. Patrick’s third annual banquet. It also ran Mar. 18 in the Hartford Courant and was in the New York Times on Mar. 19.
March 18 Thursday – Sam had a large maple cut down in the yard, “five steps from the house,” thinking it was dead. He wrote in a letter to David Gray ten days later that only one limb was dead and that he found “himself keeping away from the windows on that side because that stump is such a reproach…” [MTL 6: 429].
March 18 Saturday – James B. Adams wrote from St. Marys, Wyo. to Sam asking for writerly advice—which publications are best to start with? [MTP].
March 18? Saturday – In Hartford, Sam wrote to James T. Fields regarding his upcoming Hartford lecture [MTPO].
March – The 3rd of 7 installments of “Old Times on the Mississippi” ran in the Atlantic Monthly.