24? April 1876 • Hartford, Conn. (Partial transcript with facsimile signature: Kenneth W. Rendell catalog, unknown date, no. 262, lot 24, UCCL 12477)
unknown amount of text missing
I am sure I would not object, but for the fact that we do repeat the play on Thursday night. It would not bear a third venture, I fear. But here I am talking as one having authority, whereas I am nothing but an actor—a mere understrapper, & under command. Miss Hamersley hired me at no salary I find myself, & so I must simply obey orders & be civil or I lose my situation. I trust you know I would not willingly throw away a chance to assist a charity so worthy as the Holly Tree Coffee House, but you see how the case stands.
The sales catalog that provides a clearly incomplete text of this letter includes a facsimile of Clemens’s signature and describes it as “two pages, octavo, Hartford, Connecticut, undated. On stationery imprinted with his monogram.” Clemens probably wrote it a day or two before his first performance, on Wednesday, 26 April, in The Loan of a Lover (Planché 1847; see 22 Apr 1876 to Howellsclick to open link, n. 1, and 28 Apr 1876 to Franklinclick to open link). Sarah S. Cowen (1820-87), widow of Sidney J. Cowen (1815-44), was president of the Union for Home Work, organized by the women of Hartford in 1872
for the purpose of improving the condition and, in particular, the home life of the poorer women and children of the city. A coffee-house, similar to those which at that time were springing up in all our cities, and which have done so much to revolutionize the dining-saloon business in the interest of neatness, health, and cheapness, had just been opened in Market Street. This became the centre of the Union’s work, and many other features were rapidly added,—as reading-rooms for boys and girls, a day-nursery, sewing and cooking schools, a clothing-club, lending-library, etc. . . . Mrs. Sidney J. Cowen was president of the Union from the beginning until 1883. (Trumbull 1886, 1:538–39)
Cowen’s letter asking Clemens to schedule a third performance of the play as a benefit for the Holly Tree Inn coffee house has not been found. Miss E. J. Hamersley, who was managing the amateur theatricals, was also vice-president of the Union for Home Work. No third performance was given (Geer 1875, 54, 85, 301).
Partial transcript with facsimile signature and paraph, Kenneth W. Rendell catalog, sale of unknown date, no. 262, lot 24.
MicroPUL, reel 8, undated.