Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes (Ⓐ)
This text has been superseded by a newly published text
MTPDocEd
To the First National Bank of Hartford
or George P. Bissell and Co.
29? June 1876 • Elmira, N.Y. (MS, in pencil: CU-MARK, UCCL 09063)
(SUPERSEDED)
written in left margin of tax bill:

Make check payable to John Franey, Esq., & send it to Mr. Perkins.1explanatory note

S. L. C.
on recto of tax bill for $1277.41 from the Town and City of Hartford and School Districts, signed in ink by John Franey, Collector; upon receipt of payment, 3 July 1876; on the verso, abstract of tax law, “Passed by the General Assembly, May Session, 1865.”
Textual Commentary
Previous Publication:

MicroPUL, reel 1.

Provenance:

See Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.

Explanatory Notes
1 

On 28 June Charles E. Perkins, Clemens’s lawyer, had forwarded Franey’s statement of 1876 property taxes to Elmira. Assessed values were prepared in the fall of each year and announced the following March, with taxes on them payable by 15 July (see 16 Oct 76 to Perkinsclick to open link, n. 1). Based on the fall of 1875 assessed value of $63,360, Clemens’s bill came to $1,277.41. Clemens may have intended the present note, written on Franey’s statement, for the First National Bank of Hartford, or for George P. Bissell and Company, Hartford bankers and securities dealers, whom he employed at least from 1877 until 1891. The requested check was sent to Clemens who then, on 1 July, enclosed it in a letter to Perkins that is not known to survive. Perkins paid the tax bill two days later (Perkins to SLC, 17 June 1876, 28 June 1876, 3 July 1876,CU-MARK; Geer 1876, 34, 292).