Vol 3 Section 0623
8 barrels seasoned 25 & 50-cent postal currency, vintage of 1866, eligible for kindlings.
Please deliver with all convenient dispatch at my house in Riverdale at lowest rates for spot cash & send bill to
Your obliged servant
Mark Twain
who will be very grateful & will vote right.
Note: curiously, this letter ran a year later in the Oct. 22, 1902 New York Times, p.8, as “Mark Twain’s Joke” (above) and states it was sent to “Secretary Shaw,” (Leslie M. Shaw 1848-1932, who was in the post from 1902 to 1907) not his predecessor, Lyman J. Gage. The letter from MTP lists only the Secretary, but not by name, and is on Riverdale on the Hudson letterhead, headed “N.Y. City, Oct.3”—but Sam was in Maine on that date in 1902. NB 45 TS 29 for Oct. 5, 1902 reveals Sam sent the “winter-fuel letter to Duneka for Weekly.” Perhaps Duneka supplied the NYC heading. If it was written this day in 1901, then he wrote it on board the Kanawha, probably as a result of some joking remarks by H.H. Rogers, Twichell or others, and perhaps sent to the Times a year later. Sam had applied to Gage before to request speedy passage through customs after returning to the U.S. in 1900. Even stranger, the letter, sightly edited and dated October 13, 1902, was collected in The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1903).
October 4 Friday – Sam and the passengers on the Kanawha watched as Columbia beat Shamrock II in the best of five races, winning heat No. 3 for a 3-0 victory and defense of the Cup. In each race:
Sept. 28, 1st race, 30 miles, Windward-Leeward Course: Columbia beat Shamrock II by 01 minute 20 sec in corrected time.
Oct. 3, 2nd race, 30 miles, Triangular Course: Columbia beat Shamrock II by 03 minutes 45 sec in corrected time.
Oct. 4, 3rd race, 40 miles, Windward-Leeward Course: Columbia beat Shamrock II by 41 seconds in corrected time (Shamrock II had beaten Columbia by 2 seconds, elapsed time).
Columbia (insert, right) became a legend as it was the first boat to win two America’s Cup Matches in succession. [americas cup.com website]. Course of race, insert above.
In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Franklin G. Whitmore. “Yes, it is crooked, but say nothing to Bliss, yet. I have set the law-dogs on Brer
Newbegin a day or two ago” [MTP]. Note: see Sept. 18. This letter shows 
that the Kanawha
returned to N.Y.C. after the America’s Cup heat, and Sam returned to Riverdale.
October 5 Saturday – In Riverdale, N.Y. Sam wrote to Mr. Osborne (not further identified): “Indeed I should very much like to see that institution, but I have settled down, now, to stir from under the rooftree no more forever—at least for a year or two, I hope. / Won’t you send me another copy of the pamphlet? I hadn’t read three pages of it before some one carried it off. I was thoroughly interested” [MTP].
SLC used mourning border for most letters from Susy’s death on, then from Livy’s death on.