May 11 Tuesday — Katharine I. Harrison for H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam: “Just a line to let you know that I have the signatures to both certificates of the Mark Twain Company, so your mind can be easy on this point” [MTP].
C.H. Gould for American Library Assoc., Montreal wrote to ask Sam for “an address, a reading, a paper—in any way you choose” for their Annual Conference June 28-July 5 [MTP]. Note: “Ans’d May 18, “02”
May 12 Wednesday — Sam’s new guestbook:
| Name | Address | Date | Remarks |
| Henryetta M. Holst [?] | May 12th 1909 | Thinks she [deserves] real house. Hope in [time] to be one of the [citizens] of [Heaven]. |
John F. Bernard wrote from Grafton, W. Va. to Sam.
My dear “Indolent” Friend; —
May 14 Friday — James M. Beck for Shearman & Sterling (Attys.) wrote to Sam, not having a reply for his May 10 letter canceling the engagement, as he was purchasing a house at Sea Bright and wished “to take possession at an early date” [MTP]. Note: “Ans’d May 18, ‘09”
Belle V. Elliott for the Saturday Club of Brunswick, Maine wrote to ask Sam to come speak in November or sometime in the winter [MTP]. Note: “Ans’d May 18, ‘09”
May 15 Saturday — Sam’s original guestbook, since replaced by the newer, more elegant gift from Mary B. Rogers, for some reason lists this date for Clara Ashcroft, and Lucy Ashcroft [Mac Donnell TS 7]. Note: any connection to Ralph W. Ashcroft of these two is unknown. Sisters?
Sofia Haag and Charles Haag wrote from Norwalk, Conn. to invite Sam to a Whitman fest on May23 [MTP]. Note: “Ans’d May 18, 09”
May 16 Sunday — The Charlotte Observer (N.C.) included an article by Archibald Henderson, “The Real Mark Twain” [Tenney 47].
May 18 Tuesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow. “Dear Poultney: / Come, by all means! I shall be in New York, but that is nothing, for Jean will be here to welcome you & house you. With my best love to your father, / Ys ever / Mark” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Mr. M.B. Colcord in No. Plymouth, Mass.: “ Dear Mr. Colcord: / You see, all I want is to convince sane people that Shakspeare did not write Shakspeare. Who did, is a question which does not greatly interest me” [MTP].
May 19 Wednesday — At 7:20 a.m. in his home at 3 East 78th in NYC, Henry Huttleston Rogers died following a stroke. Clemens was on his way to visit Rogers without knowing of the death.
The New York Times, May 20, p.1, reported on the death of Rogers and Sam’s shock at learning the news:
H. H. ROGERS DEAD, LEAVING $50,000,000
Apoplexy Carries Off the Financier Famous in Standard Oil, Railways, Gas, and Copper.
ONLY HIS WIFE WITH HIM
May 20 Thursday —- M.W. Thompson for the Ionian Lecture Course, Univ. of Illinois wrote to ask Sam to lecture during the coming school year [MTP]. Note “Ans’d May 26, ‘09”
May 21 Friday — At 10 a.m. Sam was a pallbearer at the funeral of Henry Huttleston Rogers, at the Unitarian Church of the Messiah, Park Ave. and 34th Street, NYC. Rev. Dr. Robert Collyer conducted the services, aided by the Rev. Dr. John Haynes Holmes, the church’s current pastor. The body was taken for burial by train to Fairhaven, arriving in the evening [NY Times, May 22, p. 16, “Simple Funeral for H.H. Rogers”’].
May 22 Saturday — Clemens inscribed his copy of The Mother and the Father. Dramatic Passages, (1909) by William Dean Howells: “S. L. Clemens / from W.D. Howells. / May 22, 1909” [Gribben 332].
Andrew Carnegie wrote from Stresa, Italy: his sympathies to Sam on learning of the death of H.H. Rogers:
May 24 Monday — Columbia University sent Sam an engraved invitation to exercises of Commencement Week, May 24 to June 4 [MTP]. Note: likely before this date; included a baseball game Yale v. Columbia on May 29,
May 25 Tuesday — Sam recorded going to New York to check with a secretary of the late H.H, Rogers, Miss A. Watson, who had been put in charge of looking into the financial records to see if the Ashcrofts had committed theft.
May 26 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a postcard to Marjorie Breckenridge.
The summer is clothed in all its splendors, Marjorie dear, & it is beautiful here now. I have to go away & leave it for a while, but shall be back the middle of June, & by that time I hope you will be housed in that shady nook in the glen.
With love & good wishes / SLC [MTAq 258].
May 27 Thursday — In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to a non-extant from Poultney Bigelow.
Dear Poultney: /Indeed yes the invitation does hold good till September.
I, too, was invited to join the psycho-theologized band. ‘Think of that: Sunday School inviting Satan.
Very well, I've seen an expurgated Don Quixote; also an expurgated Bible. They were merely sucked oranges. / Yours ever [MTP].
University of Missouri sent an engraved invitation to their 67" Commencement, May 30 to June 2 [MTP]. Note: “Declined May 27, ‘09”
May 28 Friday — Sam recorded a blunder by Ashcroft that led to the revocation of a power of attorney to Lvon and a search for a general power of attorney:
Toward the end of May our tempest in a teapot was pulling away at a great rate, & making a lively stir amongst the farms & hamlets scattered in the woodsy hills & vales of our neighborhood. Every day brought its fresh little event & added a new text for gossip. Whatever either side did or said was known next day all around, & discussed.
May 29 Saturday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a short note to Isabel V. Lyon revoking in writing the power of attorney he’d given her and revoked orally some months ago. Albert Bigelow Paine signed as a witness [MTP].
Sam also wrote to an unidentified person about the appointment of Paine as his secretary and manager of his affairs [MTP: American Art Assoc.—Anderson Galleries catalog, Nov. 11-12, 1937, No. 4346, Item 89].
May 30 Sunday — Sam recorded that daughter Clara and Albert Bigelow Paine were still not satisfied about the possible existence of a general power of attorney that Sam may have given unaware to Ralph W. Ashcroft.
May 31 Monday — Sam and Albert Bigelow Paine went to New York City and made a startling discovery:
We went down the next morning, Monday, & while I loafed in the Hotel Grosvenor, Paine went to the banks. Sure enough, in the Liberty National he found a power of attorney! A stately one, a liberal one, an all-comprehensive one! By it I transferred all my belongings, down to my last shirt, to the Ashcrofts, to do as they pleased with.
June — George Gordon Coulton (1858-1947) book From St. Francis to Dante, etc. (1907), was signed by Sam on the front pastedown endpaper: “SL. Clemens /June, 1909, /Stormfield. From James M Beck” [Gribben 161]. Note; see other entries on Beck.
June 1 Tuesday — Sam noted in his after Sept, 25, 1909 letter that on this day was the “Discovery of the Blanket Power of Attorney,” referring to the Nov. 14, 1908 document. In the L-A MS, section XVIII, however, he puts the discovery at Monday, May 31. Did the search take two days or one? Sam included in a copy of the document revoking the discovered power of attorney, signed by Clemens and received and recorded by John N. Nickerson, Redding Town Clerk, on June 3.
June 2 Wednesday — Italian journalist Felice Ferrero visited Stormfield and interviewed Mark Twain for the most popular Italian newspaper in Italy, Corriere della Sera. Zuppello includes the interview in her 2008 paper for American Literary Realism. In part: .
June 3 Thursday — Ralph W. Ashcroft wrote a registered letter to Sam, acknowledging the revocation of the Nov. 14, 1908 power of attorney, which was recorded by John N. Nickerson on this day (see entry). He added:
June 4 Friday - In Redding, Conn, Sam wrote a postcard (picturing Stormfield) to Dorothy Quick.
“Dorothy Dear, it is too bad, but I shall be in Baltimore from the 8th to the 12th, This is an engagement I made with Francesca several months ago—she graduates on the 10 th of June. “It is a nice photo—thank you, dear, with lots of love—S L C” [MTP; MTAq 259].
Sam gave this day as the day the Ashcrofts left Redding for New York and Europe:
June 5 Saturday — In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to a non-extant letter from James Beauchamp (“Champ”) Clark, House of Representatives, Washington.
Dear Champ Clark: / Is the new copyright law acceptable to me? Emphatically, yes! Clark, it is the only sane, & clearly-defined, & just & righteous copyright law that has ever existed in the United States. Whosoever will compare it with its predecessors will have no trouble in arriving at this decision.
June 7 Monday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Amelia Dunne Hookway.