July 13, 1882: Family departs Hartford, spending the night in New York, then boarding a spcial car for the trip to Elmira on the 14th.
September 21, 1882: Sam traveled to Hartford, returning to Elmira the next day.
September 28, 1882: The family departed Elmira for New York then to Hartford on the 29th.
July 13 Thursday – Sam wrote to William H. Gillette, letter not extant but referred to in Gillette’s July 18 reply.
The Clemens family was finally able to leave Hartford for Elmira. They made the first leg to New York, and, as was their custom, stayed the night [MTNJ 2: 90n198].
July 14 Friday – The Clemens family boarded a special railroad car and left New York for the ten-hour trip to Elmira [MTNJ 2: 490n198]. They had to make a “hurried & abrupt” meeting with Charles and Annie Webster at the hotel before leaving, due to Jean’s needs and Livy’s backache [July 16 letter to Webster].
July 16 Sunday – Sam wrote from Elmira to E.R. Holden of the Erie, Lackawanna Railroad
“I & my family wish to thank you after a limitless fashion for your good offices in our behalf. Mr. Reasoner furnished us a new sleeping car which was the perfection of comfort & cleanliness. (I wore a white Irish-linen suit all day, & did not smut it.)” [MTP].
July 17 Monday – Jane Clemens wrote to Sam and Livy: “Dear Children / Sam said I was going to bury Jean before she was dead. I was just as near burying Sam as I was Jean, for I thought lumbago & other diseases were very dangerous. The Dr’s have dismissed me, some time ago. I am taking towel baths at night” which gave red splotches. She sent love to the children [MTP].
July 18 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster.
DEAR CHARLEY —
Don’t forget to send me Bliss’s check
Please send me ½ dozen of my small scrap-books—size of this page or somewhat larger.
Mrs Moffett offers me her Watch stock at par. I suppose it is well enough to take it, isn’t it? [MTBus 191].
July 19 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James R. Osgood:
July 20 Thursday – A piece ran in the Elmira Daily Gazette that was reprinted on p. 2 of the New York Times for July 23:
MARK TWAIN AS STRONG AS MR. TILDEN
July 21 Friday – In Elmira, Dr. Thaddeus S. Up de Graff made a visit on “East Hill with 2 office treatments” likely following, where he examined Susie Clemens’ eyes and fit her with glasses [Sept. 1 bill from Dr. Thaddeus S. Up de Graff]. See entry.
July 22 Saturday – After a pleasant visit with his father and siblings in Canada, William Dean Howells and family boarded the S.S. Parisian in Quebec, bound for England [Goodman and Dawson 223].
James R. Osgood wrote to advise they were sending by Am. Express a bunch of books and articles Clemens wanted [MTP].
July 24 Monday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster.
Yes, I received & banked both of those checks—and then forgot it.
Damn that Bliss statement. I forgot to return it to you—I wish you had sent me only a copy. I have left the blamed thing in my portfolio of business letters under the table in the billiard room at home. If you shall find that you need it, write George Griffin, “(with S.L. Clemens”) & he will find it in the pocket marked “K.”
July 25 Tuesday ca. – Shortly after his letter of July 24 to Howells, Sam followed up with a P.S.
“O, I forgot to say, that I forwarded the biography, & that it reached the Century all right. Jean’s well at last!” [MTP].
July 26 Wednesday – Jean Clemens’ second birthday.
Sam wrote from Elmira to Charles Webster, about a variety of business matters—Sam had received the “expert’s report” [auditor] of American Publishing’s books, but Sam still didn’t know “whether 50,000 ‘Sketches’ have been sold or not?”—as the man did not specifically mention that book [MTBus 192].
July 27 Thursday – Hooker & Co. sent Sam a check for $244.70 for the sale of his old carriage [MTP].
July 28 Friday – Joel Chandler Harris wrote [MTP].
Estes & Lauriat (Boston booksellers) billed Sam for “1 Strickland’s Queens 26 vols 110.00” Marked paid on Aug. 4 [MTP].
William M. Laffan for Harper & Bros. wrote: “Thanks! I will send you a proof anyhow! My glass was not full, but I hastened away and put you in debt to me to the extent of 15c.” He wrote of hot weather in the high 90s [MTP].
July 29 Saturday – Robert Jones Burdette (1844-1914) wrote and enclosed a poem from “S.A. Hara,” a pseudonym, one of several, used by the crackpot Bristol Conn. grocer, Wallace Muzzy in his series of non-sensical missives to Twain.
July 31 Monday – In Elmira Sam replied to the July 22 from Capt. Edmund Gray (b. 1834) a resident of Gray’s Point, Scott County, Missouri, and Cape Girardeau, and steamboat pilot on the Mississippi for many years.
Hang it, no! I haven’t received Dad’s photograph. Maybe it was sent to Osgood, Boston, instead of to me, at Hartford. Was it?—if so, it’s all right & I shall get it.
August 1 Tuesday – Sam also wrote to Charles Webster, who had conveyed the news of illness there.
“It is dismal news. We had the impression that Annie & the children [at this date they had two: Alice, age six; William, nearly four] were to leave for some country place the moment the summer (June) should begin. It seems a very severe attack, but I hope you & Annie are in better hopes & spirits by this time” [MTP].
August – Sometime during the month, Orion wrote Sam with accusations that Charles Webster had defrauded people with the Watch Co.
August 2 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to John L. RoBards:
Dear John— / What promise? I hardly ever make one—and never make one that is any trouble to keep. Tell me about this one (for I have forgotten it utterly) & if it isn’t any trouble to keep it, I’ll keep it, as sure as you live—otherwise, I’ll add it, without a twinge of conscience, to the million of the same kind that went before it [MTP].
August 3 Thursday – Charles E.S. Wood wrote: “The White Elephant is now all he ought to be and I’m proud of him. After final disposals here is the residue of 1601. The old sheets I destroyed” [MTP].
August 4 Friday – Sam paid Estes & Lauriat of Boston $110 for 26 volumes of Agnes & Elizabeth Strickland’s Lives of the Queens of England from the Norman Conquest, and other works by the two, including a six-volume work by Mary Anne Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England. The bill paid was dated July 28 [Gribben 674].
August 5 Saturday – Orion Clemens finished his Aug. 4 letter [MTP].
August 5–9 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Lt. Charles E. S. Wood, who wrote Aug. 3 asking if Sam would like a proof wood engraved portrait by Timothy Cole.
August 7 Monday – Hubbard & Farmer bankers & brokers wrote to Sam, Large printed page of stock prices enclosed. They’d rec’d an order from him this day to sell a stock at over 46 (see JB & W sale Aug. 4), which they interpreted as 46 or better [MTP].
Mollie Kane sent Sam a postcard from Union, Mo. full of shaky handwriting, spelling and grammar errors, asking for an autograph and claiming that her “Grandma used to know your uncle” [MTP].
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].