Home at Hartford: Day By Day

August 7 Saturday – In Elmira Sam responded to his mother’s recent letter. He was glad that Orion and Mollie and Pamela were no longer sick. He remembered the weather there on their visit.

August 7 Tuesday – Franklin G. Whitmore wrote to Sam that he’d deposited the Am. Pub. Co.’s check for Sam’s royalties with Bissell’s Bank. Sept. 22 was the deadline for paying Pratt & Whitney; Charles Davis couldn’t say just when the typesetter would be finished [MTP].

J.O. Ashenhurst wrote to Sam (enclosed in Webster & Co. Sept 18) [MTP].

August 7 Wednesday – In Elmira Sam wrote to the editors of the Century:

I’ve done as you required — done my very levelest best to get it to you in time for the November number — & I reckon I’ve succeeded. — Hope so, anyway. I mail it to-night.

Sam also wrote that he would have Fred Hall hurry Dan Beard with the illustrations [MTP].

Adrien C. d’Henzel wrote from St. Paul, Minn.; this is a “begging letter”; Sam wrote on the env. “An incorrigible humbug” [MTP].

August 7 Thursday – Franklin G. Whitmore wrote to Sam at Onteora:

Yours recd: Have just shipped the shoes. No woolen socks to be found. Everything is going on as usual — Mr Paige is head over heels interested in some electrical experiment with Nash. Davis is at factory working on the machine….I think you had better write Mr. Paige about discharging the men, Nash, Van, Earl, Vic & [illegible name] or as many as you think best [MTP].

August 8 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Franklin Whitmore. He complained of lumbago from “Carrying Jean up & down in the car, on that red-hot 12 hour trip.” He told of Jean’s whimpering and of Susy and Clara’s stoicism during the ordeal.

August 8 Tuesday – Sam was writing chapters for Life on the Mississippi when “New York papers” brought news of an explosion, Aug. 7, from Hickman, Ky. The steamer Gold Dust had blown her boilers, scalding 47 with 17 persons missing. Lem Gray was later found dead, and buried Aug. 23. This was the same packet Sam and Osgood took on the Mississippi in April [Ch 37 LM].

August 8 Friday – William F. Cody for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show wrote to Clemens [MTP].

Stephen C. Massett wrote from the Catskills, about Mrs. Sheffield, mother of Mrs. Bartholomew, “with whom you used to board & lodge on 16th street in 1869!” She was in NYC and would like to see Clemens [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Tiresome Jeems / No answer”

August 8 Saturday – Grant’s funeral and procession included 60,000 members of the military assigned by President Cleveland. Sam was not in the funeral, but took a place in the window of Webster & Co. overlooking Union Square. He stood for five hours watching as the procession worked its way north through the City, passing along 14th Street toward Fifth Avenue [Perry 231]. Kaplan says 40,000 military. A lot, anyway.

August 8 Monday – Richard Watson Gilder of Century Magazine had written Sam (unlisted in MTP’s Incoming file). Sam responded:

Oh, I didn’t know what you meant by “the play.” But it has occurred to me that you mean that 3-act German-English farce, — & so you’ve cost me a day — & I couldn’t spare it, by George! I’ve gone over it & revised…[MTP].

August 8 Wednesday – The New York Times, p 4 ran a notice to the editor from Charles L. Webster & Co., dated Aug. 7.

SHERIDAN’S MEMOIRS

To the Editor of the New-York Times:

August 8 Thursday – Frederick J. Hall wrote to Sam about Johnson of the Century wanting the material and illustrations and of the one picture by Daniel Beard “made as a sample.”

August 8 Friday – In Onteora Park near Tannersville, N.Y. Sam wrote two notes to Franklin G. Whitmore, the second a PS for the first. Sam wanted all work on the machine and all expenses limited as of Sept. 1. He felt official notice had been given to any men who continued to work in September, and announced they would be refused payment, save for Charles Ethan Davis, Paige’s assistant.

August 9 Monday – Sam wrote to the editors of the River Record about articles they’d referred to which he intended to publish in book form after visiting the Mississippi again. These would become Life on the Mississippi. Sam realized that since he’d left the river, new boats had come and gone. “Yours is a very good paper,” he wrote, “but it makes a person baldheaded to read it” [MTLE 5: 140].

August 9 Tuesday – Marie A. Brown wrote from Chicago to Sam: “Your advice to authors—to publish themselves and to give a commission to instead of receiving it from publishers—is invaluable, and I long to follow it.” She asked his further advice about her six historical novels from the Swedish [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “A Curiosity"

August 9 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster.

August 9 Saturday – The Critic ran an article, “The Lounger,” unsigned, which noted the tact with which James B. Pond announced the upcoming lecture season, giving Mark Twain and George W. Cable billings which would cause neither to feel slighted [Tenney, Supplement American Literary Realism, Autumn 1980 p170].

August 9 Sunday – Sam had arranged “business…with Hartford people” on Tuesday (Aug. 11), but moved it up to Sunday so he might return to Elmira the next day [Aug. 15 to Johnson]. The nature of his business with Hartford people is unknown. It is possible that the Hartford people referred to came to New York.

August 9 Monday – In Philadelphia, the court denied an injunction against John Wanamaker & Co.

AN INJUNCTION REFUSED.

August 9 Tuesday – Theodore Frelinghuysen Seward wrote to Sam, asking if he might have the “idiot” comment Sam made about Tonic-Sol method being a “rational mode” over the conventional (Staff method), “which was the invention of an idiot.” Sam wrote “NO. SLC” on the letter [MTP].

Franklin G. Whitmore (Whitney ca. Aug. 9 enclosed) wrote, “Your letter with the Pratt & W’s enclosures rec’d,” and that Paige was down sick under a doctor’s care [MTP] 

August 9 Friday – Sam’s notebook: [chk #] 4388. A.H.H. Dawson, $10, Aug. 9 / [chk #] 4389 Langdon & Co. $100 Aug. 9 [3: 491].

Sam wrote to George Standring, letter not extant but referred to in Standring’s Sept. 16 [MTP].

Franklin G. Whitmore wrote to Sam:

August 9 Saturday – In Onteora Park near Tannersville, N.Y. Sam wrote again to Franklin G. Whitmore, stressing one fact — the machine should be “up & at work without shadow of doubt, Sept. 1.”

The most important man — to me — after Senator Jones, will arrive in Hartford on that day, to look at the machine. Me. Davis named that date & his prophecies have succeeded heretofore, which gives me confidence this time [MTP].

Paris Balloon Ride, Horse Races, French Morality & Fires All Summer - Onanism At The Stomach Club – Crowded By Visitors -  Dirty Brussells, Antwerp & Dinner On The Admiral’s Flagship -  Rotterdam, Amsterdam & London – Orion Excommunicated -  Spurgeon Preaches, Great Darwin Seen – Gallia For Home – Howells Sleepeth -  Writing Tramp – Grant “Fetched Up”– Patriotic Frenzy – Ingersoll, Freethinker -  Lavish Colt “Blowout” – Holmes’ 70 Th Redemption

Hartford & Elmira – Investments: Kaolatype, Paige – Tile Club – A Tramp Abroad - Jane Lampton Clemens (Jean) born – “Wattie” – Boston Getaway - Frederick Douglass Speech – Grant Speaks in Hartford - Elisha Bliss Dead – Political Speeches for Garfield – Slote & Sneider - Grant Saves Chinese Mission – 1880 Income $250,000

1880 – Sam began using more facsimile correspondence cards of his handwriting to decline lecture invitations [MTLE 5: 6]

1881 – “Etiquette” was written sometime during the year but remained unpublished during Sam’s lifetime

1882 – Sam drew up a list of his investments and domicile expenses since Jan. 1, 1881.