To Pamela A. Moffett
15 January 1870 • Utica, N.Y.
(MS: NPV, UCCL 00412)

My Dear Sister—

Am in a great hurry. Forwarded a check for $500 to Ma the other day,1 & also took the liberty to send you $100 to pay your Railway fares with. I believe I wrote Mrs. Fairbanks that you would send your card to her from the Kennard House, Cleveland—but unhappily, she will no doubt be in Connecticut, then, with her husband & eldest daughter. However, you might send up to the Herald office & find out. His name is A. W. Fairbanks.2

Hurry up, Pamela, you & Annie, & get to Elmira by the 24th or 25th if you can. Telegraph me or Mr. Langdon what from Cleveland or Salamanca, or somewhere, what hour you will reach Elmira.3 I shall be there by the 22d, to remain. I take no more lecture engagements after 21st.

We had an enormous house here to-night. And we had a splendid time. I guess I could get engagements enough to last the rest of the year if I wanted them or could stand the fatigue.

I enclose a note from Tom Fitch by which Orion will see that Tom is moving in the matter. Let Orion drop him simply a line, thanking him.4

Love to all of you, every one. Livy & the rest instruct me to remember them warmly to all of you.

Affectionately

Sam.

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Signs

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1 Jane Clemens received this check on 6 January (JLC, 4).

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2 The Fairbankses either did not go on, or had already returned from, their trip when Pamela and Annie reached Cleveland (see 7 Jan 70 to Fairbanks). Years later Annie’s son, Samuel C. Webster, recalled:

Annie and Pamela stopped off at Cleveland and stayed with Mrs. Fairbanks for three days. This was Annie’s first trip East, and she always thought of Mrs. Fairbanks as her first Eastern acquaintance. She was charmed with her good sense and informality, just as Uncle Sam had been. (MTBus, 107)

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3 In a ledger entry for 24 January, Jane Clemens noted: “M. &. A started Y N Y” (JLC, 11). (“M.” stood for “Mela,” a family nickname for Pamela.) If they reached Chicago that same day, remained “a whole 24 hours” as Clemens advised (7 Jan 70 to Fairbanks), then went to Cleveland on 26 January and visited “for three days” (27, 28, and 29 January), they would not have arrived in Elmira until 30 January. Salamanca, New York, was about 160 miles east of Cleveland and 100 miles west of Elmira.

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4 The “matter” was Orion Clemens’s alleged overpayment in 1863–64, as secretary of Nevada Territory, for the printing of the laws and documents of the territorial legislature. In June 1869, R. W. Taylor, comptroller of the United States Treasury Department, had begun pressing Orion for repayment of $1,330.08 (L3, 388 n. 1). The enclosure from Thomas Fitch, a Nevada acquaintance of the Clemens brothers’ and now the Republican congressman from Nevada, has not been found. But Fitch must have reported his recent attempt to intervene on Orion’s behalf, evidently at Clemens’s request. On 5 January, in his official capacity, Fitch had written to Taylor:

I have the honor to enclose a communication from Mr Orion Clemens formerly Secretary of Nevada Territory, and to say that I have no doubt of the truth of the statements made by Mr Clemens. I was editor of the Virginia City Union in 1863 and a portion of 1864 and can vouch for the accuracy of his representations with regard to the price of printers labor and materials. I hope that you will afford to Mr Clemens any relief in your power not inconsistent with the interests of the department.

Orion’s “communication,” dated 3 January 1870, was also addressed to Taylor. In it he again explained the “embarrassing peculiarities of my position in Nevada Territory,” which had kept him from obeying “to the letter” the Treasury Department’s guidelines for payment to printers, its prohibition of advance payments, its insistence that printing be done within the territory even if it could be done more cheaply elsewhere, and its requirement that work be paid for in “greenbacks” rather than gold. “I hope you will see the dilemma I was placed in,” Orion concluded, “and appreciate the fact that human nature, with the best intentions, was liable to make some mistakes; and equally liable to have motives misconstrued and actions misunderstood” (Fitch and Orion Clemens letters in “Territorial Letters Received,” transcriptions in CU-MARK, courtesy of Robert D. Armstrong). The available records do not indicate if Taylor granted relief to Orion (Armstrong, 47 n. 52).

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).

Previous publication: L4, 29–31; MTBus, 107, with omission; MTMF, 117, excerpt.

Provenance:see McKinney Family Papers in Description of Provenance.