Home at Hartford: Day By Day

November 6 Thursday – The “Twins of Genius Tour” continued with a reading at Music Hall, Orange, N.J. Clemens included: “A Telephonic Conversation,” “Col. Sellers in a New Role,” “ A Dazzling Achievement,” “Tragic Tale of the Fishwife,” “A Trying Situation,” “A Ghost Story,” and “A Sure Cure” [MTPO].

November 6 Friday – Frank Fuller wrote from Madison, NY. About being lied to by a solicitor that Clemens would “take charge of this magazine,” Literary Life. He then wrote of a financial scheme [MTP].

November 6 Saturday – Sam gave a reading before the Hartford Saturday Morning Club. The content of the reading is unknown [Fatout, MT Speaking 657].

Sam wrote to an unidentified person:

November 6 Sunday – In Hartford, Sam wrote a rather long, laborious, but increasingly humorous apology to Frances F. Cleveland (Mrs. Grover Cleveland). He’d accepted an invitation the night before to a Bridgeport, Conn. function. He then realized (or was told by Livy) that they were giving a dinner party on that date [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Richard Watson Gilder:

November 6 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to George W. Smith, willing to take on his cause against “those Ohio people” and write a letter for him. Sam had seen “some more of it in the ‘Times’ this evening.”

November 6 Wednesday – Sam returned to Hartford [MTNJ 3: 526n142].

Richard W. Gilder for Century Magazine wrote to Sam that Nov. 15 was the date of the Fellowcraft Club dinner. Sam would go and schemed a surprise with James B. Pond (see Nov. 15).

November 6 Thursday – Katherine (Kate) Foote wrote to Sam thanking him for a book (unspecified) sent for an Indian boy; she would let the doctor take it to the reservation and would let Sam know what the boy thought of it [MTP].

Cecilia Fosbery wrote from London to Sam; she met him four years before while staying at the Hotel Capitol in Hartford with her father, who was doing work at the Colt factory. She asked Mark Twain for his autograph for the wife of Dr. Hutchinson Tristram, “a very well known man…He wants one of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s” — was it possible? [MTP].

November 7 Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Thomas Bailey Aldrich. After some playful prose and jabbing at Aldrich, Sam wrote of the impending trip to Chicago:

November 7 Sunday – Sam spent the day visiting with William Dean Howells and family [MTLE 5: 194].

November 7 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Karl and Hattie Gerhardt, with a note to Charles Ethan Porter (1847/8-1923), a black painter born in the Hartford area, now famous for his fruit and flower paintings.

November 7 Tuesday – George W. Cable wrote from N. Orleans to Sam: “I’m not going to try to say anything—adequate. I am here to thank you and Mrs. Clemens for your delightful hospitality, but what shall I say. I kiss my hand. I kiss Mrs. Clemens hand. I get out my handkerchief. But all is ineffectual-insufficient. Embrace the dear little girls, Susie Clara & Jean for me. … / I sent the books to you a day or two ago, (On the 4th). Mrs. Cable had failed to find them all…” [MTP]. Note: Sam received the books Nov.

November 7 Wednesday – This article ran in the Hartford Times (and Nov. 9 in the New York Times, p4, below), documenting the missing telegram:

THE TELEGRAM THAT WAS “MISLAID”

From the Hartford (Conn.) Times, Nov. 7

On Nov. 7, Cable wrote to his wife,  “Had a great success in Orange last night.”

November 7 Saturday – James Fraser Glück (1852-1897) for Young Men’s Assoc. Buffalo wrote to ask for the HF MS for display in their library [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Sent what was left of Huck Finn / Buffalo Library”

George E. Waring wrote on Union League Club notepaper, NYC that he’d come “near invading you last week. I shall have that pleasure soon” [MTP].

November 7 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Hjalmar Boyesen, asking him to thank his “delightful friends” for the “fine photographs” sent. He had their New York address but not Col. Lilliehōōk’s [MTP]. Note: (See Oct. 21 & 24 entries.)

November 7 Thursday – Marvin Safe Co., N.Y. wrote to Sam: “We beg to acknowledge your favor stating that you will guarantee payment of safe for Mr. J.W. Paige” [MTP].

Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam: “I referred you a letter from Mr. Blakely Hall of the ‘N.Y. Sun’, together with Mr. Hazeltine — who does a great deal of reviewing for the ‘Sun’ — was in to-day to see us about the book.” Hall thought, knowing Sam’s “quite close relations with the ‘Sun’,” to refer the matter to him. [MTP].

November 8 Saturday – Sam left Hartford with George Warner, both bound for Chicago [MTLE 4: 130]. He stopped in New York, where Dan Slote told him that the scrapbook business was “booming—can’t fill the orders” [134].

November 8 Tuesday – John W. Sanborn wrote to Sam sending his book, Distinguished Authors Whom I have Known.

November 8 Thursday – Francis Hopkinson Smith for Pedestal Fund Exhibition wrote about his plan to read “that letter” to a group, “ if it don’t send every mother’s son of them home with a sore back, I’m a Dutchman” [MTP].

November 8 Saturday – Sam and Cable gave a reading in Blackstone Hall, Providence, Rhode Island. Cable’s Nov. 9 to Lucy:

November 8 Sunday – Sam entertained an old Virginia City friend, landlord, and editor of the Territorial Enterprise, Rollin M. Daggett (see Jan. 24, 1878). Daggett had been U.S. Minister to the Sandwich Islands. He stayed two days and showed Sam a manuscript he’d written with the King Kamehameha V of the Islands; Sam was interested in publishing it [Nov 11 to Webster, MTP].

November 8 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Frederic G. Kitton, responding to his Oct. 28 request to contribute remarks to Kitton’s forthcoming book, Dickensiana:A Bibliography of the Literature Relating to Charles Dickens and His Writings (1886). Although writing other biographies, Kitton was noted for his work on Charles Dickens. At seventeen years of age he worked as an apprentice on the staff of the London Graphic.

November 8 Tuesday – In Hartford, Sam wrote a short request to Frank B. Darby, his Elmira dentist. Sam wanted a “half dozen bottles of” Darby’s tooth powder [MTP]. The following check to the Glenham Hotel suggests an overnight trip to New York:

 Check #  Payee  Amount  [Notes]

3886  G Luern  3.30

3887  H.L. Oliver & Son  5.20

November 8 Thursday – Thomas Sharp, an Army officer, wrote a longish letter to Sam. His brother was the brother in law of Gen. Grant and U.S. Marshall of the District of Columbia, and he thought Sam possibly had met him. He was prompted to write after a re-reading of LM, and sketched his life story, asking only if Sam were in California to look him up [MTP].

November 8 Friday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Mr. (James?) Goodwin.

My Dear Mr. Goodwin:

If I had written this letter as many times as I have intended to do it, I should have had to sell one of the children to pay the postage; but I didn’t, & the family are all here yet [MTP]. Note: The James Goodwin mansion was one of four Sam cited in a request to compare taxes — see Aug. 19, 1889 entry.