1P. T. Barnum married Nancy Fish (1850–1927) in 1874, his first wife having died in 1873 (7 June 1875 to Barnum, L6, 491–92).

2Pauline Seeley, Barnum’s youngest daughter by his first wife, Charity Hallett, died on 11 April, aged 31, from complications of measles and diphtheria. Barnum wrote to Clemens, either informing him of her death or replying to the present letter: “We have received a terrible blow, but ‘God’s will be done!’” (letter reported, without date, in Joseph Bryan 1956, 149; Saxon 1989, 266). Possibly Clemens was writing to Barnum’s wife because it was she rather than Barnum himself who first informed the Clemenses of the death.