The Buffalo Express: Day By Day

March 15 Tuesday – Sam accepted an invitation from a Mr. Nicholls to read for the G.A.R. [MTL 4: 92]. Note: Reigstad credits Martha Gray (Mrs. David Gray) with persuading Twain to speak as part of the Grand Army of the Republic’s lecture series. Reigstad writes:

March 16 Wednesday – Sam telegraphed an unidentified person, declining to lecture “during the present season” [MTL 4: 92].

March 18 Friday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Hattie Booth, an autograph seeker [MTL 4: 93].

March – Between March 1870 and March 1871 – Sam wrote 87 pieces for the New York Galaxy [Wilson 109]. He was offered two and a half times the normal rate for a regular humorous section in the magazine. He agreed only if the label of humor was not applied to his work. He thus wrote under a column titled, “Memoranda,” and his first article was published in May.

Livy’s cousin, Anna Marsh Brown stayed with the Clemenses “briefly” [Reigstad 134].

March – Mark Twain’s (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance was published (Note: Rasmussen gives February, p.49). “First Romance” was joined with the work but was first published on Jan. 1, 1870 in Buffalo Express [Budd, “Collected” 1008].

March 19 Saturday – Sam’s article, “A Mysterious Visit,” a delightful spoof on income taxes and deductions, was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 166]. A second article attributed to Sam, “Literary Guide to Williams & Packard’s System of Penmanship,” also was printed in the Express [McCullough 170].

March 2 Wednesday – The Clemenses invited George H. Selkirk and wife Emily over for the evening. Selkirk was one of Sam’s Express partners [Reigstad 133].

Jervis Langdon replied to the Feb. 26 from Sam:

Dear Samuel,

March 21 Monday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to James T. Fields, senior partner in Fields, Osgood & Co., a prestigious Boston publishing company. Fields preceded William Dean Howells as editor of the Atlantic Monthly.

March 22 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to James Redpath, his lecture circuit agent.

“Dear Red: I am not going to lecture any more forever. I have got things ciphered down to a fraction now. I know just about what it will cost us to live & I can make the money without lecturing. Therefore old man, count me out” [MTL 4: 94].

March 26 Saturday – In the morning Sam looked out his master bedroom window and saw flames on the roof of 455 Delaware Street. He and Patrick McAleer (1846-1906), his coachman for many years, raced to help. McAleer rang fire-alarm box 62 at the corner of Virginia and Delaware. Reigstad writes:

March 27 Sunday – Sam and Livy wrote in the afternoon from Buffalo to Jervis & Olivia Lewis Langdon.

“It is snowing furiously, & had been, the most of the day & part of the night…albeit snow is very beautiful when falling, its loveliness passes away very shortly afterward. The grand unpoetical result is merely chilblains & slush” [MTL 4: 98-100].

March 3 Thursday – Sam and Livy (in shaded text) finished their letter to Jervis Langdon.

Your two letters came this morning, father, & your dispatch yesterday afternoon. (Mem.—Ellen’s in the stable & the horse in the attic looking at the scenery.)

March 31 Thursday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Charles Frederick Wingate (1848-1909), a New York correspondent of the Springfield, Mass. Republican.

March 4 Friday – In Buffalo Sam replied to Lewis Frank Walden (whose letter not extant) explaining why he wasn’t lecturing:

“I was married a month ago & so have cast away the blue goggles of bachelordom & now look at the world through the crystal lenses of my new estate” [MTL 4: 86].

March 6 Sunday – Sam wrote from Buffalo to Robert and Louise Howland (b. 1848?) with a note to James Warren Nye. Howland was a former mining buddy and partner of Sam’s in 1861. Nye was the former governor of Nevada and now Senator.

March 7 Monday – Sam’s brief disclaimer of a rumor that he was about to leave Buffalo was printed in the Express, daily from this day through Mar. 11. “I am a permanency here” [MTL 4: 89].

March 9 Wednesday – An article attributed to Sam, “More Wisdom,” was printed in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 159].

May 1 Sunday – Sam and Livy left Buffalo and arrived in Elmira. The Elmira Reporter announced that Jervis had returned from the south, and that Sam and Livy were in town. Jervis, knowing his time was short, officially restructured his company to include his son Charles J. Langdon, Theodore W. Crane, and John D.

May 10 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Elmira to James Redpath and vowed he was out of the lecturing field permanently [MTL 4: 128].

Sam and Livy returned to Buffalo, either this day or the next and found Pamela Moffett waiting [MTL 4: 130-1n1].

May 13 Friday – Sam and Livy wrote from Buffalo to Jervis Langdon, thanking him for sending Livy a check for $1,000. Evidently the seriousness of Jervis’ illness was yet unknown to them, for Livy enclosed a cure for dyspepsia for Jervis [MTL 4: 129-31].

May 14 Saturday – Sam’s article, “Our Precious Lunatic,” was published in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 204]. William Ward, in an article, “American Humorists,” for Beacon, wrote:

May 16 Monday – In Buffalo, Sam wrote but did not send a letter to Henry Wheeler Shaw (Josh Billings) [MTP, drop-in letters].

May 17 Tuesday – Elizabeth N. Buckingham (Horr) wrote from Canton, Ohio to Sam, enclosing Elizabeth Horr’s letter of May 16.

May – After reaching an agreement with the Galaxy on payment and copyright, Sam’s first articles for “Memorandum” were published in the May issue.

May 2 Monday – In Buffalo, Sam wrote a short note to James Redpath about lecturing in Cambridge, New York:

Dear Redpath, / I mislaid the letter enquiring about Cambridge, N.Y., till this moment. It got mixed with my loose papers.