1 According to the Rochester (N.Y.) Chronicle, Clemens sent a dispatch to Geneseo “to say that he had been delayed somewhere in Pennsylvania and missed the train” (“‘Mark Twain’ disappointed . . . ,” 20 Feb 69, 3, TS in CU-MARK). He later implied that he telegraphed from Franklin: “while I could have made Geneseo easily enough from Titusville, I couldn’t do it from Franklin. So I telegraphed them to stop the lecture & send my bill, which they did. I paid it—$22.25” (27 Feb 69 to Fairbanks). The Genesee Valley Herald, whose account of Clemens’s communications is preserved verbatim in this and the next three letter texts, called his “non-arrival” a “sore disappointment, not only to the Young Men’s Association, but to many in this and surrounding towns” (“Mark Twain’s Lecture,” 3). The Young Men’s Association of Geneseo Academy sponsored various extracurricular programs, chief of which was “engaging prominent lecturers of the time to speak in Geneseo” (La Vigne, 1). Geneseo Academy (originally called Temple Hill Academy) was erected in 1826 and was an affiliate of the Buffalo Synod of the Presbyterian church (French, 141–42, 383 n. 9). For Clemens’s own account of his experience with the Young Men’s Association, see 2 Mar 69 to OLL.