The Buffalo Express: Day By Day

August 17 Tuesday – “Removal of the Capital,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 7]. Note: see also Feb. 16, 1864.

August 18 Wednesday – “Lady Byron – Mrs. Stowe’s Revelations,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 8].

August – In the Galaxy for this month—MARK TWAIN’S MEMORANDA – Included “Personal Explanation,” “Portrait,” and:

A MEMORY

August 19 Thursday – “Inspired Humor,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 9].

From the Buffalo Express “People and Things Columns” by Mark Twain:

·       One of those venerable parties, a pre-Adamite man, has been dug up from a depth of ninety-eight feet, in Alabama. He was of prodigious stature, and is supposed by savans to have existed twelve thousand years ago. Life was entirely extinct when they got him out.

August 2 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss. Claiming that he’d only allowed Appleton to bid on his book—they bid ten per cent—but did not and would not have agreed regardless of what they bid, Sam wrote:

August 20 Friday – Sam, in Buffalo, began a letter at nearly 2 AM to his sister Pamela. He’d sent his luggage to St. Louis on June 24, but never made the trip, so apologized. With his wedding planned for Christmastime or New Year’s, Sam felt for his mother, and sister to travel across the country would be “equivalent to murder & arson & everything else,” not to mention a cost of some $500.

August 21 Saturday – Sam’s first signed sketch, “A Day at Niagara,” appeared in the Buffalo Express. Also an introductory piece he titled, “Salutatory”:

I shall always confine myself to the truth, except when it is attended with inconvenience.

I shall not write any poetry, unless I conceive a spite against the subscribers.

I shall not often meddle with politics, because we have a political editor who is already excellent, and only needs to serve a term in the penitentiary to be perfect [McCullough 5].

August 21 Sunday – In the evening, Thomas K. Beecher gave a memorial tribute to Jervis Langdon in Elmira’s Opera House [MTL 4: 182n1]. Sam & Livy probably stayed in Elmira until the day after the memorial, and then returned to Buffalo [MTL 4: 185].

August 22 Monday – O.B. Jabbers wrote on Northern Tier Gazette letterhead, Troy, Pa. “Enclosed find an atrocity recently printed at this office to be distributed to the children and parents of the aforesaid school [no school mentioned].The undersigned line touched my feelings as a red hot poker would a sleeping cat” [MTP]. No article in file.

August 23 Monday – “Uncriminal Victims,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 18].

From the Buffalo Express “People and Things Columns” by Mark Twain:

·       Children in Iowa bite rattlesnakes in order to prevent toothache. Probably the cure would be more permanent if the rattlesnakes bit the children.

August 23 Tuesday – “Colonel” Alexander Curran Walker (1816-1883) wrote from McBean, Ga.

August 24 Tuesday – “The Byron Scandal,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 19].

From the Buffalo Express “People and Things Columns” by Mark Twain:

·       The Blondes will expose themselves in Elmira to-night.

·       Peach kernels contain hydrocyanic (or prussic) acid, and are dangerous nutriment. Fifteen hundred of them taken on an empty stomach will kill a man.

August 25 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Charles Warren Stoddard, poet and contributor to the San Francisco Overland Monthly. Stoddard became Sam’s personal secretary/companion in London in 1872.

Dear Charlie: / Thank you heartily for all your good wishes—& you must accept of mine in return. I have written Bret that we must have the “Overland”—see that he sends it, will you?

August 25 Thursday – Sam’s article “Domestic Missionaries Wanted” first ran in the Buffalo Express [Budd, “Collected” 1011].

August 26 Thursday – Sam finished a letter of Aug. 25 from Buffalo to Livy of his plans to be home in Elmira about 8 PM Friday. He enclosed notices of the Innocents Abroad [MTL 3: 322-3].

“Only a Nigger,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 22].

August 27 Friday – Whitelaw Reid of the New York Tribune published the first review of Innocents by a metropolitan daily, a positive and even-handed appraisal [MTL 3: 343n1; Powers, MT A Life 275]. Any good word from the Tribune was momentous and important to Sam.

August 28 Saturday – Sam’s article “English Festivities. And Minor Matters. Fishing” appeared in the Express [McCullough 23].

August 30 Tuesday – How do rumors get started? Here’s one from the Brooklyn Eagle p.4 of this date:

“Dr. Clemens, a brother of ‘Mark Twain,’ is a practicing physician in Louisville.”

Thomas Swift, M.D.  wrote from Hartford to Clemens.

“HOGWASH”

     In a late number of the Galaxy you give an interesting specimen of this class of literature with an expressed desire for Some more.

August 31 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to his sister Pamela A. Moffett:

“We’re getting along tolerably well. Mother is here, & Miss Emma Nye. Livy cannot sleep, since her father’s death—but I give her a narcotic every night & make her.”

August 5 Friday – Sam wrote from Elmira to Elisha Bliss, asking Bliss’ son Frank to send the quarterly statement. He added, “The physicians pronounce Mr Langdon’s case utterly hopeless. The family are shrouded in gloom, awaiting the end” [MTL 4: 180].

August 6 Saturday – Jervis Langdon died of stomach cancer at about 5 PM. His last words were, “Beecher, I’m going home” [MTNJ 1: 287]. Sam telegraphed his sister, Pamela Moffett. “Father died this afternoon” [MTL 4: 181]. Sam’s surrogate father had been an influence for good on Sam.

August 7 Sunday – from Elmira Sam wrote a eulogy for Jervis Langdon, and sent it to Josephus N. Larned, his partner on the Express, for use in that newspaper [MTL 4: 181-2].

August 8 Monday – Jervis Langdon’s funeral. His obituary was printed in the Buffalo Express, incorporating Sam’s eulogy [McCullough 224]. The Mayor of Elmira, John Arnot (1789-1873), requested that all local businesses close for two hours during the funeral [MTL 4: 183].

Sam telegraphed Elisha Bliss:

“Receipt of your check for two thousand dollars is here—hereby acknowledged. Saml L Clemens” [MTPO].

Sam Sues Webb – Finishes Lecture Tour – Sam & Livy Married “Sammy in Fairy Land”  - Buffalo Express – Jervis Falls to Cancer – Galaxy Articles – Langdon Clemens Born - Emma Nye Dies at Clemens’ Home – Diamond Plans

1870 – Paine says that “as early as 1870 he [Sam] had jotted down an occasional reminiscent chapter” for what would become his autobiography [MTA 1: vi n1]. Of these, Paine includes “The Tennessee Land,” written this year [3-7].

December 1 Wednesday – Sam lectured (“Savages”)  for Brooklyn Library Society, at the Bedford Avenue Reformed Church, Brooklyn, New York. Sam’s lecture schedule allowed him to spend most of Dec. 1 to 6 with Livy in New York City [MTL 3: 428n1].