June 22 Tuesday – The Clemens party sailed from Buffalo in the steamer India headed for Duluth, Minn.
June 27 Sunday – The Clemens family reached Duluth, Minn.
June 28 Monday – The Clemens family traveled by rail from Duluth to St. Paul, Minn.
June 21 Monday – The Clemens family and governess Rosa Hay left Elmira and traveled by rail to Rochester, where they probably dined with Daniel William Powers (1818-1897) and family, and may have spent the night there, continuing on to Buffalo the next day (See July 12 to Whitmore). Powers was an eastern financier and the owner of a fabulous art collection.
June 22 Tuesday – The Clemens party sailed from Buffalo in the steamer India headed for Duluth, Minn. At the western edge of Lake Superior. The captain of the India was Edward Mooney [MTNJ 3: 243n62]. Sam jotted in his notebook to send Mooney a copy of IA.
June 23 Wednesday – The Clemens family were aboard the steamer India. Meanwhile, using USA Passport No.6854, Charles L. Webster accompanied by his wife, Annie Moffett Webster, sailed for Europe on the City of Rome [Samuel L. Clemens Papers in the McKinney Family Papers, Archives and Special Collections Library, Vassar College Libraries; Webster to Sam June 21].
June 24 Thursday – The Clemens family were aboard the steamer India.
June 25 Friday – The Clemens family were aboard the steamer India.
June 26 Saturday – The Clemens family were aboard the steamer India. Note: According to the interview in St. Paul, Sam claimed the trip across the lakes was five days.
From Susy Clemens’ diary:
June 26, 86 We are all of us on our way to Keokuk to see Grandma Clemens, who is very feeble and wants to see us and pertickularly Jean who is her name sake. We are going by way of the lakes, as papa thought that would be the most comfortable way [Papa 225].
June 27 Sunday – The Clemens family reached Duluth, Minn. About this day.
June 28 Monday – The Clemens family traveled by rail from Duluth to St. Paul, Minn. About this day. The St. Paul and Minneapolis Pioneer Press interviewed Sam (See June 30 entry). Note: Kaplan writes Sam was dressed “in alligator slippers, a light-gray suit, and a pearl-colored high hat” [289].
June 29 Tuesday – According to the interview with the St. Paul newspaper (printed June 30), the Clemens family was in St. Paul and staying at the Ryan Hotel.
June 30 Wednesday – The Clemens family boarded a Mississippi steamboat for the final leg of their journey to Keokuk, about 500 miles [Scharnhorst, Interviews 88]. (Sam had estimated it “a 7 or 8-day journey” from Elmira to Keokuk; it took eight days).
Willis writes:
July 1 Thursday – William J. Hamersley wrote to Sam from Hartford about the London exhibition of typesetters at the American Exhibition, costs for space, etc. The event would open May 2, 1887 and continue for six months. Patents needed, foreign and domestic, would need to be secured beforehand.
July 2 Friday – H.R. Thompson of the Stickney Machine Co. Wrote from Boston to Franklin G. Whitmore, apologizing for the failure of their machine to “do its work every time,” and that they’d located the problem. Furthermore, Thompson offered to sell “an undivided one-fourth interest” in the machine [MTP].
July 3 Saturday – Since the fourth fell on a Sunday, the town of Keokuk held the festivities on Saturday the third. From early morning people began arriving in the town. It was a clear, sunny, and hot day. Public buildings were decorated with buntings and ribbons. After a morning parade down Main Street, a carriage was sent for Sam to take him and Orion to Rand Park. Sam wore a white duck suit with a tall white hat, which caused a stir in the crowd as he passed to the platform.
July 4 Sunday – From Susy Clemens’ diary, comes the final entry of the biography of her father, interrupted in mid-sentence. Sam would later remark how this sentence suggested his dead daughter was merely away, would return to finish:
July 4. We have arrived in Keokuk after a very pleasant [Papa 225].
July 5 Monday – In Keokuk, Iowa Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore (who had written June 29), giving him power of attorney to act in a matter of “the music scheme.” Sam informed him that they were leaving Keokuk on July 7 [MTP].
July 7 Wednesday – The Clemens party left Keokuk [July 5 to Whitmore] and traveled to Rock Island, Ill. Or Clinton, Iowa where they caught a train to Chicago. Sam’s only entry in his notebook on the trip was the following:
July 8 Thursday – The Clemens family and Rosa Hay stayed in Chicago for two days at the Richelieu Hotel. This is probably the day Sam was interviewed by the Chicago Tribune. On July 15 Sam would write his sister, Pamela Moffett, about seeing the Moffetts in Chicago, probably nieces of the late William A. Moffett:
July 9 Friday † – The Clemens party boarded an eastbound train from Chicago. In his July 15 to his sister, Sam wrote of the accommodations:
July 10 Saturday – The Clemens party arrived back in Elmira (See July 12 to Whitmore), the return trip all by rail taking two days, far less than the meandering by steamer across the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi on the outbound legs.