To Orion Clemens
28 November 1853 • Philadelphia, Pa.
(MS, damage emended: NPV, UCCL 00003)

Philadelphia, Nov. 28th 1853.

My Dear Brother:

I received your letter [to-day]. I think Ma ought to spend the winter in St Louis. I don’t believe in that climate—it’s too cold for her.1

The printer’s’ annual ball and supper came off the other night. The proceeds amounted to about $1.000. The printers, as well as other people are endeavoring to raise money to erect a monument to Franklin, but there are so many abominable foreigners here (and among printers, too,) who hate everything American, that I am very certain as much money for such a purpose could be raised in St Louis, as in Philadelphia[.] 2 I was in Franklin’s old office this morning,—the “North American” (formerly “Philadelphia Gazette”), and there [were ]at least one [foreighner ]for [every ot o American ]at work there.3

How many subscribers has the Journal got? How m What does the job-work pay? and what [ th does ]the whole concern pay? I have not seen a [copy of ]the paper yet.

[I intend to take ]Ma to Ky., [anyhow], and if I possibly have the money, I will attend to the deeds too.4

I will try to write for the paper occasionally, but I fear my letters will be very uninteresting, for [this ]incessant night work dulls one[’s] ideas amazingly.

From some cause, I cannot set type near so fast as when I was at home. Sunday is a long day, and while others set 12 and 15,000, yesterday, I only set 10,000. However, I will shake this laziness off, soon, I reckon.

I always thought the eastern people were patterns of [uprightness.; ]but I never [ below before ]saw so many whisky-swilling, God-despising heathens as I find in this part of the country. I believe I am the only person in the Inquirer office that does not drink. One young fellow makes $18 for a few weeks, and gets on a grand “bender” and spends every cent of it.

How do you like [“free-soil?5 I ]would like amazingly to see a good, old-fashioned [negro.” ]My love to all

Truly your brother

S Sam.

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

Click to add citation to My Citations.

1 The somewhat colder climate of Muscatine, Iowa.

Click to add citation to My Citations.

2 The third anniversary ball and banquet of Philadelphia Typographical Union No. 2 took place on 23 November at Sansom Street Hall. On 1 November, editors, authors, publishers, and printers had met at the County Court House to devise means to erect a suitable monument to Benjamin Franklin. Jesper Harding, proprietor of the Pennsylvania Inquirer, was chosen chairman of the Franklin Monument Association and early in December appointed an executive committee to take charge of the project (Philadelphia Pennsylvanian: untitled notice, 1 Nov 53, 2; “Respect to the Memory of Benjamin Franklin,” 2 Nov 53, 3; “Franklin Monument Association,” Philadelphia Public Ledger, 5 Dec 53, 2).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

3 Clemens had visited the offices of the Philadelphia North American and United States Gazette at 66 South Third Street, a few doors away from the Inquirer office. In 1845, two years before its merger with the United States Gazette, the North American had absorbed the Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser, the direct descendant of Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette. Clemens’s spelling (“foreighner”) was probably intended to represent an Irish accent. The Irish in Philadelphia at this time were the victims of widespread hostility (McElroy, 712; Hudson, 77–79, 182–83; Mott 1962, 26–28, 188, 260; NIM, 406; Clark, 29, 34).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

4 Presumably the deeds to the Clemens family’s Tennessee land (see 9 Mar 58 to OC and MEC, n. 11).

Click to add citation to My Citations.

5 Clemens refers to Orion’s move from Missouri, a slave state, to Iowa, a free state. He mistakenly placed closing quotation marks at the end of the next sentence instead of this one.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV). The MS, a single leaf inscribed on both sides, has been damaged by moisture along the bottom edge, where a piece has also been torn out, affecting four words, which are emended at 29.2 and 29.3. The MS leaf was probably already torn in 1912: the passage damaged in the MS is among those omitted from both MTB and MTL. In MTBus, S. C. Webster coped with the MS damage by quoting only part of a sentence, beginning with the word that immediately follows the gap caused by the tear: ‘. . . take Ma . . . too.’ (29.3–4). The faded ink is somewhat more legible in the original than in the illustration of the bottom of the first page.

Previous publication: L1, 28–29; MTB, 1:101, excerpts; MTL, 1:29, with omissions; MTBus, 18, 28, brief excerpts.

Provenance:see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 459–61.

Emendations and textual notes:

to-day • to-|day

were • [sic]

foreighner • [sic]

every ot o American • every ot o | American [Possible miswritten ‘ot’ followed by a partly formed character, possibly ‘o’ or ‘a’. Clemens implicitly deleted ‘ot’ by beginning the partly formed character; he explicitly deleted both together, apparently when he ran out of space at the end of the line.]

th does • [‘d’ over ‘th’]

copy of • cop[y f] [torn]

I intend to take • I [in to] take [torn]

anyhow • any[] |how [water-stained]

this • thsis [‘i’ over ‘s’]

uprightness.; • [semicolon over period]

below before • belowfore [‘fore’ over ‘low’]

“free-soil? I • “free-soil?—|I

negro.” • [sic]