August 17 Friday – Sam wrote to Charles T. Parsloe; letter not extant but referred to in Parsloe’s Aug. 20 reply; evidently Sam asked how Ah Sin was going.
Bissell & Co. wrote to Sam, crediting $372.37 rec’d and billing $4000 for S. Johnson Bonds [MTP].
August 18? Saturday – In Elmira Sam sent Charles Perkins an annotated bank statement concerning S. Johnson bonds valuing $4,003.52 [MTLE 2: 132].
August 20 Monday – Sam wrote a short note from Elmira to Francis D. Clark, declining to attend an invitation for an event of the Society of Pioneers, pleading other engagements. Clark’s invitation had been forwarded from the St. James Hotel in New York [MTLE 2: 133]. Sam also turned down an invitation to the group’s annual banquet back in Jan. 1876 [MTLE 1: 30].
August 21 Tuesday – Charles E. Perkins wrote financial details to Sam, having rec’d his of Aug 16 and 20. “I leave tonight for two weeks vacation” [MTP].
August 22 Wednesday – William C. Hutchings wrote to Sam, offering to dispose of the “Sketches” pamphlets and make $300 by selling them to Aetna Life Ins. Co. who would print their ad on the back [MTP].
August 23 Thursday – In Elmira, sharecropper John T. Lewis (1835-1906) stopped a runaway horse-carriage and saved the lives of Ida Clark Langdon (1849-1934), wife of Charles, little daughter Julia (1871-1948), and the nursemaid Norah.
August 24 Friday – Sam inscribed a copy of Mark Twain’s Sketches, New and Old, to John T. Lewis, who saved Ida Langdon’s life from a runaway horse carriage the day before [McBride 36].
Charles T. Parsloe wrote to Sam: “Have secured Edwards. Business light this week. Daly gets it all. Houses average $200—only. / Will you please send me check for $50. and oblige” [MTP].
August 25 Saturday – Maze Edwards & Charles T. Parsloe wrote to Sam about Ah Sin business, enclosing a contract of this date between Clemens, Edwards and Parsloe. Edwards also wrote: “The item you speak of did appear in all the New York papers, and Mr. Fiske was the instigator of it. He now endeavors to evade it by saying it was Bret Harte who said such an event would take place. Parsloe informs me he has agreed with you for my services.
August 27 Monday – Sarah T. Crowell and Emma Gayle, Cape Cod neighbors, wrote to Clemens:
August 28 Tuesday – Sol Smith Russell wrote to Sam wishing an interview. He’d rec’d Sam’s of Aug. 25 and reported his “engagements are closed to Feb. 1st—nothing beyond—I leave New York Sunday 2nd for the south” [MTP].
August 29 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to William Dean Howells. Sam had received Howells’ letter the day before and didn’t care for one of his Bermuda articles in proof.
August 30 Thursday – Sam wrote to Mollie Clemens and his mother, Jane Clemens, who was visiting Orion and Mollie in Keokuk. Sam sent Livy’s advice that Mollie’s health would be a “bar” to her trying to run a boarding house. To his mother Sam wrote:
August 31 Friday – Maze Edwards for Wall’s Dramatic Bureau wrote from NY to Sam; not found at MTP but catalogued as UCLC # 32556.
September –Elisha M. Van Aken (1828-1904) wrote to Sam [MTP].
September 3 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Mary Mason Fairbanks. Sam encouraged Mary to visit, and wrote about his desire to travel to Germany next May 1, “& settled down in some good old city…& never stir again for 6 months. Then come home.” Sam’s mother was visiting Quarry Farm, and the Clemens family would go home to Hartford the next day [MTLE 2: 148].
September 4 Tuesday – If the intentions in the two letters of Sept. 3 to Mary Fairbanks and the Howlands were carried out, the Clemens family left Elmira and returned to their home in Hartford.
September 10 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Etta Booth, a girl of eight when Sam first saw her in Virginia City in 1863. Etta had written to Sam from New York. Sam responded:
September 11 Tuesday – Samuel C. Upham sent Sam a printed poem, “The Land We Adore” handwriting on the bottom, “Mr. Samuel L. Clemens with compliments of The Author” [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env “ ‘Poetry’ by the man who said that if Prentice Mulford would put his mind to it he could easily cast Twain & Harte’s literature far into the shade.”
September 12 Wednesday – Joe Twichell wrote from Keene Valley, NY to quote a paragraph from Charles Kingsley’s Life, Am. Edition p. 407 which contained the botanical word “Oreodoxa” which he thought Sam should have used in his article “to take off the flavor of the cabbage.” He hoped Sam was “up for a long walk this fall” [MTP].
September 15 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to George Bentley, publisher of the London Temple Bar. Sam sent Bentley the first of four articles he’d written for Howells and the Atlantic on his Bermuda trip, and now sent the second. Sam conveyed Andrew Chatto’s desire for the advance sheets of the articles if Bentley did not want them.
September 16 Sunday – H.J. Mettenheimer wrote from Cincy to Sam, clipping enclosed that claimed Clemens had written a St. Louis insurance man asking for “a full history of the rise and fall of life insurance in the West.” H.J. volunteered such information [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env “A lie probably started by Raymond”
September 17 Monday – In Cambridge, Mass., Howells wrote to Sam, advising him not to give “that story about the captain” to “those fellows” in some unidentified club, as “They’d be sure to slap it into print.” Howells wanted to use Sam’s story about John T. Lewis from Sam’s Aug. 25 letter, calling Lewis the “Elmira life-preserver” [MTHL 1: 202].
September 18 Tuesday – John Brougham (1810-1880) wrote to Sam, criticizing the detective character in a possible play (Simon Wheeler) [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env “Jhn Brougham Sept 77 About Detective”
September 19 Wednesday – From Hartford, Sam wrote a letter to the editor of the Hartford Courant, which ran on page 2 on Sept. 20 as, “A Tramp of the Sea.” Sam threw some light upon the mystery of a “schooner with a black crew of thirteen and only one white man,” (the Jonas Smith). On return from Bermuda Sam’s ship had come in contact with the mystery vessel [MTLE 2:&nb
September 20 Thursday – Sam’s letter about contacting the mystery vessel, the schooner Jonas Smith, with a large black crew not being mutineers as first reported, ran in the Hartford Courant under the headline “Tramp of the Sea” [MTLE 2: 154-7].