April 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y. (MS: CSt, UCCL 11712)
E pluribus Unum.
This sentiment has been attributed to others, but it originated with
Mark Twain.
Jane Eliza Lathrop Stanford (1828–1905), originally from Albany, New York, had been married since 1850 to Leland Stanford, governor of California from 1861 to 1863 and one of the builders (as well as president and director) of the Central Pacific Railroad ( NAW , 3:340–42). Clemens was not in Hartford in April 1870: his dateline is therefore a fiction, intended to seem appropriate once this “sentiment” was inserted in a gift copy of The Innocents Abroad. In customary fashion, he sent this page to the American Publishing Company in Hartford, to be forwarded with a book (compare 23 Apr 70 to Blissclick to open link).
MS, M122 American Authors Collection, Department of Special Collections, Green Library, Stanford University (CSt).
L4 , 103–104.