Quarry farm 1880: Day By Day

June 20 Sunday – Sylvester Baxter’s profile article of Sam Clemens ran on p. 10 of the Boston Herald. The piece only mentioned Charles Dudley Warner in passing, and focused on Sam’s writing habits, his home surroundings and biography, with a few comments on his main works [MTHL 2: 314n1].

June 22 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Orion, asking him not to send any more of his manuscript until he’d finished. Evidently Orion had sworn to complete the book, even though Sam had advised him to concentrate on his new job at the Keokuk Gate City (see May 12 entry). Sam wrote the family was well and would go to Quarry Farm “in a week or two” [MTLE 5: 131].

June 23 Wednesday – Charles Perkins wrote from Hartford explaining the contract for quarterly payments on Tramp Abroad to Sam, which called for an annual adjustment to half of the profits [MTLTP 138n1; MTP].

Sam wrote to James C. Thomson in Manchester, England, letter not extant but referred to in Thomson’s July 4 reply.

June 25 Friday – Harriet W. Hawley (Mrs. Joseph R. Hawley) wrote to Sam (letter now so faded as nearly illegible), petition enclosed for the support of a monument to Adam. Signatures plus a typed list of signers in the file [MTP].

June 26 Saturday – Orion Clemens wrote to Sam. “All right. I will finish my MS. and then send it to you in one batch. I am glad you are still at work—I suppose on the Last Prince. I should be very sorry to interfere…Mollie’s agent sold 19 Tramps in two days, last week, and 12 since. She pays her 30 p.ct. to make her active” [MTP]. Note: Mollie Clemens was acting as if she were an agent; no documentation found that would say authorized agent.

June 29 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Dan Slote, sending the last thousand dollars of three pledged to invest in the Kaolatype process [MTLE 5: 132].

June 30 Wednesday – Frank Bliss of the American Publishing Co. made out a check to Sam for $10,000. Endorsed by Sam and Charles E. Perkins for deposit [MTP].

September 1 Wednesday – Park & Tilford billed Sam for “1 doz Glen Whisky” total $14; Sam ordered nineteen badges from Tiffany & Co. These badges were made for the young women of the Saturday Morning Club, and receipted for on Sept. 17 [MTNJ 2: 371-2n49; MTP].

September 11 Saturday – In Elmira, Sam sent a telegraph to George Griffin, his butler in Hartford. He directed the telegram to be exchanged with his attorney Charles Perkins for twenty dollars [MTLE 5: 157]. John J. Lawler, Hartford merchant, billed Sam $2.60 for glass pane and the labor to replace [MTP].

September 13 Monday – In Elmira, Sam wrote to Harriet Whitmore (Mrs. Franklin Whitmore), responding to her letter about her husband’s recent illness. Frank was better and Sam offered that he would “hurry up Whitmore’s health in the billiard room” when both families returned to Hartford in the fall. He wrote for Livy, who still wasn’t up to writing. The Whitmores were staying in Branford, Conn. [MTLE 5: 158].

September 14 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to the editors of the New York Evening Post. It was a humorous letter about mining gold in water. The letter ran in the newspaper Sept. 16 [MTLE 5: 159]. Note: it was reprinted in the Sept. 20 Hartford Courant, page 1 as “Mark Twain on the Goldsprings.”

Sam finished The Prince and the Pauper. (See Sept. 15 entry.)

September 15 Wednesday – In Elmira, Sam wrote to Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who had sent him a copy of his book to read—already read by Sam (The Stillwater Tragedy, serialized in the Atlantic Monthly, Apr.-Sept.1880). He wrote about Livy and the baby Jean, and about finishing a story (Prince and the Pauper) the day before.

September 16 Thursday – Sam’s letter to the New York Evening Post, dated Sept. 14, ran in the paper [MTLE 5: 159]. Camfield and Budd list this as “Millions In It” [bibliog.; “Collected” 1019].

September 17 Friday – Charles E. Perkins wrote to Clemens with the Bissell Bank balance and other financial information. Dan Slote had not answered requests for a statement [MTP].

September – Sam wrote a parody of the poem by James Leigh Hunt, “About Ben Adhem”. See Sam’s parody “Abou Ben Butler” [MTNJ 2: 372-3]. Sam’s second of three McWilliams sketches, “Mrs. McWilliams and the Lightning” ran in the September issue of the Atlantic Monthly [Wells 23]. Sam copied in his notebook John Sheffield’s famous quatrain:

Read Homer once, & you can read no more;

For all books else appear so mean, so poor;

September 20 Monday – Sam packed a satchel and ordered a place in the sleeper car for by telephone, and prepared to leave the next morning for Buffalo and possibly Fredonia. He would visit family and the David Gray family. Six-year-old Clara came down with a very bad throat and the doctor was called. Sam canceled the trip [MTLE 5: 164].

September 21 Tuesday – David Gray wrote to Sam expressing the “wretched disappointment” that Sam’s telegram brought of Sam’s canceled visit over Clara’s illness; and he hoped “nothing serious is referred to in it, & that you plan for coming will only be postponed a little…Come! Come !! Come !!!” [MTP].

September 23 Thursday – In Elmira, Sam wrote to David Gray, about his plans to visit Buffalo being dashed by Clara’s throat inflammation,  about Livy’s health and his lumbago, about growing older, and about the wonders of the telephone and telegraph. He’d planned to take his P&P manuscript  to discuss it with Gray, who now would have to visit him [MTLE 5: 165].

September 24 Friday – Charles Dudley Warner wrote to Sam. “I really don’t think there is any danger in your coming now…” He felt the trouble with Sam’s petition to the Courant was it would be difficult to say anything (about the malaria) “without causing a row” [MTP]. File note: “SLC’s petition was probably letter to Editor, Courant, between 21 & 24 Sept 1880—about malaria—MTP has incomplete draft”

September 27 Monday – The Clemens family left Quarry Farm and Elmira and took the special “hotel car” for the ten hour ride to New York City, where they stayed three days at the Gilsey House. Invoiced by Arnold, Constable & Co., N.Y., blankets and a shawl, for $7.75 [MTP].

September 28 Tuesday – Elisha Bliss died [MTNJ 2: 353]. Twichell would speak at his funeral; Twichell’s message would be printed in 1882 [MTP].

T.A. Wales, M.D., Elmira billed the Clemens family for 39 visits from July 5 to Sept. 27; bill marked paid [MTP].

September 2–16 Thursday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Tiffany & Co. in New York, enclosing their Sept. 1 invoice and a draft for $418 for nineteen badges [MTLE 5: 152].

September 3 Friday – Sam wrote a postcard from Quarry Farm, Elmira to T.W.M. Boone of Ft. Smith, Arkansas, thanking him for an honorary membership in their “Young Folks’ Literary Guild” [MTLE 5: 153].

September 8 Wednesday – Sam paid $6.60 to A.S. Fitch at 112 Baldwin Street, Elmira for German books [MTP].