Home at Hartford: Day By Day

June 8 Sunday – Clara Clemens’ sixteenth birthday.

June 9 Wednesday – Sam wrote two letters from Hartford to William Dean Howells. The first was about the visit of Sylvester Baxter (“Mr. B.”) who stayed at Sam’s a day or two (Sam wrote “during 24 hours”) to gather information for an interview (see June 8 entry).

June 9 Thursday – Sam went with a party by train to West Point for graduation festivities, otherwise known as “June Week.” The group included Joseph Twichell, General Sherman, Secretary of War Robert Lincoln (son of Abraham Lincoln) and a dozen others.

June 9 Friday – Orion Clemens wrote from Fredonia: “When your dispatch came this afternoon I told Ma I had received a dispatch from you, in which you sent the love of all that family, and wishes to be kept informed. She was much affected”[MTP].

William M. Laffan for Harper & Bros. Wrote: “Dear Clemens: / If it will suit you I can come up on the newspaper train Tuesday a.m. which will give me all day” [MTP].

June 9 Saturday – Sam’s Thursday reading for the Decorative Art Society noted a spot in the New York Times, p.4 under “GENERAL NOTES.”

June 9 Tuesday – Sam was in New York. He gave notice to his canvassers that volume two of Grant’s work would soon be published. Perry writes that Sam:

“…contracted for the use of twelve more printing presses and seven more bindaries, all of which combined would produce one set of memoirs every second. All of Twain’s funds were now tied up in printing, marketing, and distributing Grant’s memoirs” [203].

From Sam’s notebook:

June 9 Thursday – The last full day at Frederick E. Church’s “Olana” mansion. Sam and Joe Twichell went for a hike. Grace King joined them and wrote about it the next day:

June 9 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Nellie Bunce (1853-1922) (daughter of Edward M. Bunce). Sam complimented Nellie’s singing [MTP]. Note: On Oct. 24 of this year Nellie would marry Archibald Ashley Welsh and found the Hartford School of Music, later called the Conservatory of Music. Edward (Ned) Bunce was a longtime friend and Friday Evening billiards player.

June 9 Monday – Robert J. Burdette wrote to Sam, informing him that Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey 1835-1905) was the “fellow who wrote ‘Forget what did’” [MTP]. See Apr. 14.

Wm. B. Smith & Son, Flour, Grain, Feed, Baled and Loose Hay and Straw, Hartford, billed $16.95 for May 2, 3, 16, 30: meal, bran, etc.; Paid June 23 [MTP].

March – About this month, Sam wrote a one-sentence letter to Stilson Hutchins (1838-1912), best known as the founder of the Washington Post, introducing:

Paige and Davis, who desire to see the type-setter at work, per my conversation with you [MTP] Note: possibly the typesetter then in evaluation at the Post.

Kinsmen Club sent Sam their printed rules adopted by the English section and Am. section [MTP].

March 1 Monday – Orion finished his Feb. 29 to Sam. “Yours of the 26th just received…‘The Autobiography of a Coward’ will be commenced within an hour and the first chapter sent to you within a week. The writing will be according to your suggestions. / I congratulate you on your invention. / I am glad you are going to finish Prince and Pauper” [MTP].

March 1 Tuesday – Sam and Twichell were still at West Point. From Twichell’s journal:

The next forenoon we spent several hours, under Gen. Howard’s kind conduct, in looking over the institution, and were impressed most favorably with every thing from the mathematical instruction to the equestrian exercise.

March 1 Wednesday – William T. Hamersley was company at the Clemens home [Letter of Mar. 2. to Webster].

Charles Ethan Porter wrote from Paris, France, where he frequently met with the Gerhardts [MTP].

Hubbard & Farmer sent a statement showing a credit to Sam of $12,775 [MTP]. Note: Sam wrote on the env., “Account squared & discontinued”; the account continued on, however, so he changed his mind.

March 1 Thursday ­– In Hartford, Sam typed a letter to Howells, who wrote on Feb.

March 1 Saturday – Charles Webster wrote to Sam: bulk of letter is about play negotiations with Marshall Mallory, etc. “Your idea about the three books is certainly good. I will write in a day or two about that” [MTP].

March 1 Sunday – Washington, D.C.: George W. Cable wrote home that he spent the day with friends “Carrie Henderson & her husband Lieut. Wadhams.” Cable wrote: “Clemens was with us. I got him out to church at last!” [Turner, MT & GWC 114].

From Sam’s notebook:

In October, I will go to Pittsfield & read “Mental Telegraphy” to the Young Ladies Club—a promise made to Miss Dawes. Mch 1/85 [MTNJ 3: 99 & n106].

March 1 Monday – The official publication for Volume II of Grant’s Memoirs, by Charles L. Webster & Co. Note: volume II contains an errata page for errors in volume I.

March 1 Tuesday – In Hartford Sam wrote to Charles Webster. Sam liked the book by Edmund C. Stedman, but didn’t “think very well of it.” This was the multi-volume Library of American Literature, which Webster was committed to and Sam later thought helped sink the firm. Sam wanted to discuss that book and two others he did think should be published when Charles came up to join his wife visiting her mother, Pamela Moffett.

March 1 Thursday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam thanking for his monthly $155 check. He was “anxious to hear about the machine.” Ma was having more delusions — now about Aunt Patsy Quarles who had been dead “30 or 40 years” [MTP].

March 1 Friday – Due to the “St. Botolph [Club] reception, after the Authors’ Readings” the night before, Sam was forced to stay over, though he’d planned to return afterward [To Nye & Riley Mar. 4] Likely then he returned home from Boston on this day. His return may have been in the evening for he did not answer a waiting letter from Edward House until the following day, Mar. 2.

March 1 Saturday – Abby Sage Richardson’s dramatization of P&P went on tour [MTNJ 3: 481-2].

Dr. Clarence C. Rice had tickets for a play (unnamed) this evening and had invited Sam to go with him. It’s not clear if they attended. See Feb. 20.

Daniel Whitford wrote one-sentence to Sam, enclosing unspecified amount for P&P royalty [MTP].

March 1 Sunday – James D. Phelan, president of the Bohemian Club, San Francisco sent Sam a souvenir program of their “Xmas Truth.” Since Sam was an honorary member, Phelan announced Sam was welcome at the “forthcoming festival” on Apr. 1, 1892 to celebrate the club’s 20th anniv. [MTP].

March 10 Wednesday – Sam and Livy went to the theater to see William Dean Howells’ play, Yorick’s Love, by a leading Spanish author, Estebanez, with Lawrence Barrett. Sam loved it and wrote: “The language beautiful, the passion so fine, the plot so ingenious, the whole thing so stirring, so charming, so pathetic.” It was “the language of the Prince & the Pauper,” he wrote Howells on Mar.

March 10 Thursday – Sam gave a reading at the “African Church” (A.M.E. Zion Church, Pearl St., Hfd.) in Hartford. He included Uncle Remus’s “Tar Baby” (see Feb. 27 entry to Howells). Paine on Sam’s interactions with black folks:

March 10 Friday – At noon, Sam saw Ulysses S. Grant at 2 Wall Street in New York, hoping to prevent President Arthur from replacing William Dean Howells’ father, William Cooper Howells as U.S. consul at Toronto. Shortly after this day, Grant assured Sam that Howells would keep the post [MTNJ 2: 450n47].