Tuesday, 23 August. 7:00 a.m., Sam departed Buffalo and traveled to Albany via Rochester and Syracuse on the New York Central. Erastus Corning had created the New York Central Railroad Company, from 10 railroad companies between Buffalo and Albany, just three months previous to Sam’s trip.
7:00 p.m., en route via the Hudson River to New York City on the steamer Isaac Newton.
August 23 Tuesday – 7 AM “from Buffalo to Albany, on the “Lightning Express” railroad, another day” [MTL 1: 3; Powers, MT A Life 64]. Dempsey gives this train trip as beginning at 8 A.M. [232].
August 24 Wednesday – “…and from Albany to New York, by Hudson river steamboat [Isaac Newton], another day—an awful trip, taking five days, where it should have been only three” [MTL 1: 3]. Sam arrived in New York City at 5 AM with “two or three dollars in his pocket and a ten-dollar bill concealed in the lining of his coat” [MTB 95; MTL 1: 5n2; Powers, MT A Life 64]. (See letter of this date for a more exacting suggested itinerary.)