{If found, please enclose in LETTER form, else it will go to the office of Buffalo “Express” & be lost among the exchanges.}
(Hezekiah L. Hosmer)
15 September 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y.
(MS: MtHi, UCCL 00506)
Buffalo, Sept. 15.
Dear Sir:1
Four or five years ago a V righteous Vigilance Committee ‸in [your ]city‸ hanged a casual acquaintance of mine named Slade, along with twelve other prominent citizens whom I only [ ◇ ]knew by reputation. Slade was a “section-agent” at Rocky Ridge station in the Rocky Mountains when I crossed the plains in the Overland stage ten years ago, & I took breakfast with him & survived.2
Now I am writing a book (MS. to be [delivered ]to publisher Jan. 1,) & as the Overland journey has made six chapters of it thus far & promises to make six or eight more, I thought I would just rescue my late friend Slade from oblivion & set a sympathetic public to weeping for him.3
[ N ]Such a humanized fragment of the original I Devil could not & did not go out of the world without considerable [newspaper ]eclat, in the shape of biographical notices, particulars of his execution, etc., & the object of this letter is to beg of you to ask some one connected with your city papers to send me a Virginia City newspaper of that day if it can be done without mutilating a file.
‸
‸
I beg your pardon for writing you so freely & putting you, or trying to put you, to trouble, without having the warrant of an introduction to you, but I did not know any one in Virginia City & so I ventured to ask this favor at your hands. Hoping you will be able to help me4
I am, Sir,
Your Obt. Serv’t
Mark Twain.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Source text(s):
Previous publication:
L4, 195–196.
Provenance:donated to MtHi in 1963 by Mrs. Frank B. Austin.
Emendations and textual notes:
your • [y]r [torn]
◇ • [partly formed character; possibly ‘n’ or ‘w’]
delivered • delelivered [corrected miswriting]
N • [partly formed; possibly ‘M’]
newspaper • news-|paper