Mr. Clemens tries to buy his contracts from the American Publishing CompanyⒶtextual note and finally takes his next book, to James R. Osgood, who published it by subscription and made a failure of it—Osgood next published “The Prince and Pauper”—Mr. Clemens buys numerous patents, losing on all of them; also stock in Hartford Accident Insurance CompanyⒶtextual note—Description of Senator Jones—Mr. Clemens refuses to buy telephone stock.
—meaning the rest of the directors.
My opportunity was now come to right myself and level up matters with the Publishing Company, but I didn’t see it, of course. I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it [begin page 53] had ceased to be one. I knew all about that house now, and I ought to have remained with it. I ought to have put a tax upon its profits for my personal benefit, the tax to continue until the difference between royalties and half profits should in time return from the Company’s pocket to mine,Ⓐtextual note and the Company’s robbery of me be thus wiped off the slate. But of course I couldn’t think of anything so sane as that, and I didn’t. I only thought of ways and means to remove my respectability from that tainted atmosphere. I wanted to get my books out of the Company’s hands and carry them elsewhere. After a time I went to Newton Case—in his house as before—and proposed that the Company cancel the contractsⒺexplanatory note and restore my books to me free and unencumbered, the Company retaining as a consideration the money it had swindled me out of on “Roughing It,” “The Gilded Age,” “Sketches Old and New,” and “Tom Sawyer.”
Mr. Case demurred at my language, but I told him I was not able to modify it; that I was perfectly satisfied that he and the rest of the Bible Class were aware of the fraud practisedⒶtextual note on me in 1872 by Bliss—aware of it when it happened,Ⓐtextual note and consenting to it by silence. He objected to my calling the Board of Directors a Bible Class. And I said then it ought to stop opening its meetings with prayer—particularly when it was getting ready to swindle an author. I was expecting that Mr. Case would deny the charge of guilty knowledge and resent it, but he didn’t do it. That convinced me that my charge was well founded; therefore I repeated it, and proceeded to say unkind things about his theological seminaryⒺexplanatory note. I said,
“YouⒶtextual note have put seventy-five thousand dollars into that factory and are getting a great deal of praise for it, whereas my share in that benefaction goes unmentioned—yet I have Ⓐtextual note a share in it, for of every dollar that you put into it, a portion was stolen out of my pocket.”
HeⒶtextual note returned no thanks for these compliments. He was a dull man and unappreciative.
Finally I tried to buy my contracts, but he said it would be impossible for the Board to entertain a proposition to sell, for the reason that nine-tenths of the Company’s livelihood was drawn from my books and therefore its business would be worth nothing if they were taken away. At a later time Judge What’s-his-name, a directorⒺexplanatory note, told me I was right; that the Board did know all about the swindle which Bliss had practisedⒶtextual note upon me at the time that the fraud was committed.
As I have remarked, I ought to have remained with the Company and leveled up the account. But I didn’t. I removed my purity from that mephitic atmosphere and carried my next book to James R. Osgood of Boston, formerly of the firm of Fields,Ⓐtextual note Osgood and Company. That book was “Old Times on the Mississippi.”Ⓔexplanatory note Osgood was to manufacture the book at my expense; publish it by subscription, and charge me a royalty for his services. Osgood was one of the dearest and sweetest and loveliest human beings to be found on the planet anywhere, but he knew nothing about subscription publishing,Ⓐtextual note and he made a mighty botch of it. He was a sociable creature, and we played much billiards, and daily and nightly had a good time. And in the meantime his clerks ran our business for us and I think that neither of us inquired into their methods or knew what they were doing. That book was a long time getting built; and when at last the final draft was made upon my purse I realized that I had paid out fifty-six thousand dollars upon that [begin page 54] structure. Bliss could have built a library for that money. It took a year to get the fifty-six thousand back into my pocket, and not veryⒶtextual note many dollars followed it. So this first effort of mine to transact that kind of business on my own hook was a failure.
Osgood tried again. He published “The Prince and Pauper.” He made a beautiful book of it, but all the profit I got out of it was seventeen thousand dollars.
Next, Osgood thought he could make a success with a book in the trade Ⓐtextual note. He had been trained to trade-publishingⒶtextual note. He was a little sore over his subscription attempts,Ⓐtextual note and wanted to try. I gave him “The White Elephant,” which was a collection of rubbishy sketches, mainly. I offered to bet he couldn’t sell ten thousand copies in six months, and he took me up—stakes five dollars. He won the money, but it was something of a squeeze. However,Ⓐtextual note I think I am wrong in putting that book last. I think that that was Osgood’s first effort, not his third. I should have continued with Osgood after his failure with “The Prince and the Pauper,”Ⓐtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note because I liked him so well, but he failed, and I had to go elsewhere.
Meantime I had been having an adventure on the outside. An old and particular friend of mine unloaded a patent on meⒺexplanatory note, price fifteen thousand dollars.Ⓐtextual note It was worthless, and he had been losing money on it a year or two, but I did not know those particulars, becauseⒶtextual note he neglected to mention them. He said that if I would buy the patent he would do the manufacturing and selling for me. So I took him up. Then began a cash outgo of five hundred dollars a month. That raven flew out of the arkⒶtextual note regularly every thirty days, but it never got back with anything, and the dove didn’t report for dutyⒺexplanatory note. After a time, and half a time, and another timeⒺexplanatory note, I relieved my friend and put the patent into the hands of Charles L. Webster, who had married a niece of mineⒺexplanatory note and seemed a capable and energetic young fellow. At a salary of fifteen hundred a year he continued to send the raven out monthly, with the same old result to a penny.
At last, when I had lost forty-twoⒶtextual note thousand dollars on that patentⒺexplanatory note I gave it away to a man whom I had long detested and whose family I desired to ruin.Ⓐtextual note Then I looked around for other adventures. That same friend was ready with another patentⒺexplanatory note. I spent ten thousand dollars on it in eight months. Then I tried to give that patent to the man whose family I was after. He was very grateful, but he was also experienced by this time,Ⓐtextual note and was getting suspicious of benefactors. He wouldn’t take it, and I had to let it lapse.
Meantime, another old friend arrived with a wonderful invention. It was an engine, or a furnace, or something of the kind, which would get outⒶtextual note 99 per centⒶtextual note of all the steam that was in a pound of coal. I went to Mr. RichardsⒺexplanatory note of the Colt Arms Factory and told him about it. He was a specialist and knew all about coal and steam. He seemed to be doubtful about this machine, and I asked him why. He said because the amount of steam concealed in a pound of coal was known to a fraction, and that my inventor was mistaken about his 99 per cent. He showed me a printed book of solid pages of figures; figures that made me drunk and dizzy. He showed me that my man’s machine couldn’t come within 90 per centⒶtextual note of doing what it proposed to do. I went away a little discouraged. But I thought that maybe the book was mistaken, and so I hired the inventor to [begin page 55] build the machine on a salary of thirty-five dollars a week, I to pay all expenses. It took him a good many weeks to build it.Ⓐtextual note He visited me every few days to report progress, and I early noticed by his breath and gait that he was spending thirty-six dollars a week on whiskyⒶtextual note, and I couldn’t ever find out where he got the other dollar.
Finally, when I had spent five thousand on this enterprise, the machine was finished, but it wouldn’t go. It did save 1Ⓐtextual note per centⒶtextual note of the steam that was in a pound of coal, but that was nothing. You could do it with a tea-kettle. I offered the machine to the man whose family I was pursuing,Ⓐtextual note but without success. So I threw the thing away and looked around for something fresh. But I had become an enthusiast on steam, and I took some stock in a Hartford companyⒶtextual note which proposed to make and sell and revolutionize everything with a new kind of steam pulleyⒺexplanatory note. The steam pulley pulled thirty-two thousand dollars out of my pocket in sixteen months, then went to pieces and I was alone in the world again, without an occupation.
But I found one. I invented a scrap-book—and if I do say it myself, it was the only rational scrap-book the world has ever seen. I patented it and put it in the hands of that old particular friend of mineⒺexplanatory note who had originally interested me in patents, and he made a good deal of money out of it. But by and by, just when I was about to begin to receive a share of the money myself, his firm failed. I didn’t know his firm was going to fail—he didn’t say anything about it. One day he asked me to lend the firm five thousand dollars and said he was willing to pay 7 per cent. As security he offered the firm’s note. I asked for an endorser. He was much surprised, and said that if endorsers were handy and easy to get at,Ⓐtextual note he wouldn’t have to come to me for theⒶtextual note money, he could get it anywhere. That seemed reasonable, and so I gave him the five thousand dollars. They failed inside of three daysⒺexplanatory note—and at the end of two or three years I got back two thousand dollars of the money.
That five thousand dollars had a history. Early in 1872 JoeⒶtextual note Goodman wrote me from California that his friendⒶtextual note Senator John P. JonesⒶtextual note was going to start a rival, in Hartford, to the TravelersⒶtextual note Accident Insurance Company, and that Jones wanted Joe to take twelve thousand of the stock and had said he would see that heⒶtextual note did not lose the money. Joe now proposed to transfer this opportunity to me, and said that if I would make the venture he was sureⒶtextual note Jones would protect me from loss. So I took the stock and became a director. Jones’s brother-in-law, Lester, had been for a long time actuary in the TravelersⒶtextual note Company. He was now transferred to our Company and we began businessⒺexplanatory note. There were five directors. Three of us attended every Board meeting for a year and a half. At the end of eighteen months the Company went to pieces and I was out of pocket twenty-threeⒶtextual note thousand dollars. Jones was in New YorkⒶtextual note tarrying forⒶtextual note a while at a hotel which he had bought, (the St. James)Ⓔexplanatory note,Ⓐtextual note and I sent Lester down there to see if he couldⒶtextual note get the twenty-threeⒶtextual note thousand dollars. But he came back and reported that Jones had been putting money into so many things that he was a good deal straitened and would be glad if I would wait a while. I did not suspect that Lester was drawing upon his fancy, but it was so. He hadn’t said anything to Jones about it. But his tale seemed reasonable, because I knew that Jones had built a line of artificial-ice factories clear across the Southern [begin page 56] StatesⒶtextual note—nothing like it this side of the great Wall of China. I knew that the factories had cost him a million dollars or so, and that the people down there hadn’t been trained to admire ice and didn’t want any and wouldn’t buy any—that therefore the Chinese Wall was an entire loss and failure. I also knew that Jones’s St. James Hotel had ceased to be a profitable house because Jones, who was a big-hearted man with ninety-nine parts of him pure generosity—and that is the case to this day—had filled his hotel from roof to cellar with poor relations gathered from the four corners of the earth—plumbers, bricklayersⒶtextual note, unsuccessful clergymen, and, in fact, all the different kinds of people that knew nothing about the hotel business. I was also aware that there was no room in the hotel for the public, because all its rooms were occupied by a multitude of other poor relations gathered from the four corners of the earth, at Jones’s invitation,Ⓐtextual note and waiting for Jones to find lucrative occupations for them. I was also aware that Jones had bought a piece of the StateⒶtextual note of California with some spacious city sites on it; with room for railroads, and with a very fine and spacious and valuable harbor on its city front, and that Jones was in debt for these propertiesⒺexplanatory note. Therefore I was content to wait a while. Among other things, I also knew this: that whereas Jones had promised to save Joe Goodman from loss, he was under no such promise to me.Ⓐtextual note
As the months drifted by,Ⓐtextual note Lester now and then volunteered to go and see Jones on his own hook. His visits produced nothing. The fact is,Ⓐtextual note Lester was afraid of Jones and felt a delicacy about troubling him with my matter while he had so many burdens on his shoulders. He preferred to pretend to me that he had seen Jones and had mentioned my matter to him, whereas in truth he had never mentioned it to himⒶtextual note at all. At the end of two or three years Mr. Slee of our Elmira coal firm proposed to speak to Jones about it and I consented. Slee visited Jones and began in his tactful and diplomatic way to lead up to my matter, but before he had got well started Jones glanced up and said,
“DoⒶtextual note you mean to say that that money has never been paid to Clemens?”
HeⒶtextual note drew his check for twenty-three thousand at once; said it ought to have been paid long ago, and that it would have been paid the moment it was due if he had known the circumstances. There are not many John P. Joneses in the worldⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐtextual note
This was in the spring of 1877. With that check in my pocket I was prepared to seek sudden fortune again. The reader, deceived by what I have been saying about my adventures, will jump to the conclusion that I sought an opportunity at once. I did nothing of the kind. I was the burnt child. I wanted nothing further to do with speculations. General HawleyⒺexplanatory note sent for me to come to the Courant office. I went there with my check in my pocket. There was a young fellow there who said that he had been a reporter on a Providence newspaper, but that he was in another business now: that heⒶtextual note was withⒶtextual note Graham Bell, and wasⒶtextual note agent for a new invention called the telephone. He believed there was great fortune in store for it and wanted me to take some stock. I declined. I said I didn’t want anything more to do with wildcatⒶtextual note speculation. Then he offered the stock to me at twenty-five. I said I didn’t want it at any price. He became eager—insisted that I at least take a trifle of it—Ⓐtextual notefive hundred dollars’Ⓐtextual note worth. He said he would sell me as much [begin page 57] as I wanted for five hundred dollars—offered to let me gather it up in my hands and measure it in a plug hat—said I could have a whole hatfulⒶtextual note for five hundred dollars. But I was the burnt child, and I resisted all these temptations—resisted them easily—went off with my check intact, and next day lent five thousand of it, on an unendorsed note, to my friend who was going to go bankrupt three days later, as I have already stated.Ⓐtextual note
About the end of the year (or possibly in the beginning of 1878) I put up a telephone wire from my house down to the Courant office, the only telephone wire in town, and the first Ⓐtextual note one that was ever used in a private house in the worldⒺexplanatory note, for practical purposes.Ⓐtextual note
That young man couldn’t sell me any stock, but he sold a few hatfulsⒶtextual note of it to an old dry-goods clerk in Hartford for five thousand dollars. That five thousandⒶtextual note was that clerk’s whole fortune. He had been half a lifetime saving it. It is strange how foolish people can be, and what ruinous risks they can take when they want to get rich in a hurry. I was sorry for that man when I heard about it. I thought I might have saved him if I had had an opportunity to tell him about my experiences.
We sailed for Europe on the 10th of April,Ⓐtextual note 1878. We were gone fourteen months, and when we got back one of the first things we saw was that clerk driving around in a sumptuous barouche with liveried servants all over it in piles—Ⓐtextual noteand his telephone stock was emptying greenbacks into his premisesⒺexplanatory note at such a rate that he had to handle them with a shovel. It is strange the way the ignorant andⒶtextual note inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the deservingⒶtextual note fail.
To return to my adventures in the publishing businessⒶtextual note.
I . . . proposed that the Company cancel the contracts] In late 1881 and early 1882 Clemens considered bringing a lawsuit against the American Publishing Company for charging him excessive costs in the manufacture of A Tramp Abroad, but his “bottom object” was “to frighten them into giving up all my copyrights to me.” He believed that he could make his copyrights pay “$25,000 a year, right along. They now pay me less than $3,000” (26 Oct 1881 and 12 Apr 1882 to Webster, NPV, in MTBus, 173–74, 184–85).
I repeated it, and proceeded to say unkind things about his theological seminary] Newton Case (1807–90) established a printing business in Hartford in 1830, which he expanded over the years, with a series of partners, into one of the largest in New England. The firm prospered for decades under the name Case, Lockwood and Brainard, although Case retired from active participation in 1858 to pursue other commercial interests. A devout Christian and an original member of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church, Case was also a trustee of the Hartford Seminary and made generous donations to its library (Hartford Courant: “Obituary. Newton Case,” 16 Sept 1890, 1; “Hartford Theological Seminary,” 29 Apr 1890, 2).
Judge What’s-his-name, a director] George Shepard Gilman (1825–86), a former Hartford city prosecuting attorney and judge of the Hartford police court, was an American Publishing Company director in the 1870s and 1880s (Connecticut Historical Society 2012; 7 May 1870 to Bliss, L4, 127 n. 1; Geer 1882, 453; 1886, 556).
carried my next book to James R. Osgood of Boston . . . “Old Times on the Mississippi.”] As in the previous dictation, Clemens substantially repeats his account in the Autobiographical Dictation of 21 February 1906 ( AutoMT1 , 369–72). He consistently refers to Life on the Mississippi (1883) as “Old Times on the Mississippi,” the title of the series of articles in the 1875 Atlantic Monthly that were reprinted in chapters 4–17. It was not Clemens’s “next book”: see the note at 54.11–13.
I think that that was Osgood’s first effort, not his third . . . after his failure with “The Prince and the Pauper,”] Clemens’s first publication with Osgood was a booklet containing only two sketches: A True Story, and the Recent Carnival of Crime (1877). This was followed by The Prince and the Pauper (1881), a collection of sketches entitled The Stolen White Elephant, Etc. (1882), and Life on the Mississippi (see AutoMT1 , 597 n. 372.25–27).
old and particular friend of mine unloaded a patent on me] In a June 1879 letter to Frank Bliss (son of Elisha), Clemens praised a patented process owned by Daniel Slote (1828?–82), a friend from the Quaker City excursion, which was used for printing illustrations. In this process, called Kaolatype, “the pictures are not transferred, but drawn on a hard mud surface. It looks like excellent wood engraving, whereas all these other processes are miserably weak & shammy” (10 June 1879 to Bliss [1st], Letters 1876–1880 ). The “mud surface” was a steel plate covered with kaolin (a type of clay), from which a mold was formed to make plates for printing. In February 1880 Clemens paid Slote $20,000 for four-fifths of the stock in the Kaolatype Engraving Company and became its president. He then hired a “young German” metallurgist named Charles Sneider to adapt the process for stamping book covers, wallpaper, and leather ( Letters 1876–1880: 26 Feb 1880 to OC; 20 Mar 1880 to Bliss; 27 Nov 1880 to OC; Krass 2007, 108–10).
That raven . . . the dove didn’t report for duty] Genesis 8:7–12.
After a time, and half a time, and another time] Revelation 12:14: “a time, and times, and half a time”; cf. Daniel 12:7.
put the patent into the hands of Charles L. Webster, who had married a niece of mine] In the spring of 1881, after a year of pouring money into the project, Clemens hired his nephew-in-law, Charles L. Webster (husband of Annie Moffett Webster, his sister Pamela’s daughter), to manage the company and investigate Slote and Sneider ( N&J2, 352–53, 390–91; for Webster see AutoMT1 , 486 n. 79.21–22).
when I had lost forty-two thousand dollars on that patent] Webster proved that Sneider was a fraud, and that he and Slote were conspiring to swindle Clemens: the sample impressions that Sneider had supplied had not been created by Kaolatype. Clemens’s belief in the process persisted, however. In 1882 he suggested it be used to produce the illustrations for Life on the Mississippi, but the artist found it unsatisfactory and refused. The invention proved a failure ( N&J2, 392–93; 6 May 1881 and 24 Nov 1881 to Webster, NPV, in MTBus, 153–54, 178–79; Osgood to SLC, 5 June 1882, CU-MARK).
That same friend was ready with another patent] No additional patent promoted by Slote has been identified.
arrived with a wonderful invention . . . Mr. Richards] In 1877 Clemens’s old friend Frank Fuller persuaded him to invest in a company that he managed, the New York Vaporizing Company, which was financing H. C. Bowers to develop a new type of steam generator. Bowers’s machine was built, but did not run, and by early 1878 Clemens had lost $5,000. Charles B. Richards (1833–1919) was a mechanical engineer who had invented a pressure indicator for steam engines ( N&J2, 12 n. 4, 459 n. 90, 491; Fuller to SLC, 15 May 1877, CU-MARK; Asher 2011).
I took some stock in a Hartford company . . . with a new kind of steam pulley] In early 1881 Clemens bought $14,500 worth of stock in the Hartford Engineering Company, which intended to build a factory for making steam-powered pulleys. In December 1887 the failed company settled with its creditors; Clemens recovered $1,897 (6 Mar 1881 to PAM, transcripts in CU-MARK; N&J2, 491; Bunce to SLC, 2 Dec 1887, CU-MARK).
I invented a scrap-book . . . in the hands of that old particular friend of mine] Clemens first mentioned his idea for a pregummed scrapbook in August 1872, and patented what he called “Mark Twain’s Patent Self-Pasting Scrap Book” in June 1873. Slote, Woodman and Company began selling the book in several sizes in late 1876. Sales were brisk—for example, in the second half of 1877, 26,310 scrapbooks were sold, earning Clemens about $1,100 in royalties. On 5 June 1881 he told Webster, “The Scrapbook gravels me because while they have been paying me about $1800 or $2000 a year, I judge it ought to have been 3 times as much” (ViU). In February 1882, after Slote’s death, he told Mary Mason Fairbanks that “Dan stole from me . . . he has swindled me out of many thousands of dollars.” Although sales diminished in later years, the scrapbook remained his only profitable patent (21 Feb 1882 to Fairbanks, CSmH; Slote, Woodman and Company to SLC, 12 Jan 1878, Scrapbook 10:33, CU-MARK; N&J2, 12 n. 2).
They failed inside of three days] Slote, Woodman and Company failed in July 1878. After settling with its creditors for 30 cents on the dollar, the firm reorganized as Daniel Slote and Company and continued to market the scrapbook (20 Aug 1878 to Fuller, Letters 1876–1880 ; N&J2, 392 n. 119).
Senator John P. Jones was going to start a rival . . . we began business] Jones, a wealthy silver-mine owner, served as a U.S. senator from Nevada in 1873–1903. He organized the “rival” Hartford Accident Insurance Company in mid-1874, offering $200,000 of capital stock. He subscribed for $75,000, and Clemens for $50,000, 25 percent of which he was required to pay for immediately. George B. Lester (1827?–94), Jones’s son-in-law, was actuary as well as secretary of the new company; both he and Clemens were on the board of directors. The company discontinued business in September 1876 (“Death Record,” Los Angeles Times, 17 Jan 1894, 8; link note following 28 June 1874 to Dickinson, L6, 170–72; “The Hartford Accident Insurance Co.,” Hartford Courant, 21 Sept 1876, 2; for Jones see AutoMT1 , 496 n. 104.16–17; for Joseph T. Goodman, proprietor of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise and Clemens’s lifelong friend, see AutoMT1 , 535 n. 225.3–5, 544 n. 252.32–253.1).
hotel which he had bought, (the St. James)] The St. James Hotel at Broadway and Twenty-sixth Street, built in 1859, was purchased in 1869 by “two gentlemen who were backed financially by Senator Jones of Nevada”; Lester was listed as its proprietor in 1876 (“Sale of St. James Hotel,” New York Times, 15 Aug 1896, 9; Disturnell 1876, 287).
Jones had bought a piece of the State of California . . . in debt for these properties] In January 1875 Jones paid $150,000 for a two-thirds interest in a large rancho in Southern California. There he helped to lay out the town of Santa Monica, hoping to develop it into a major seaport. He built a railroad from Santa Monica to Los Angeles with plans to extend it to his mining interests in Inyo County, on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. In mid-1877, when his mines were played out and he had spent nearly a million dollars, his debts forced him to sell the line to the Southern Pacific Railroad (Ingersoll 1908, 144–45, 152–53).
Mr. Slee of our Elmira coal firm . . . There are not many John P. Joneses in the world] John D. F. Slee was the chief officer of the Langdon family’s coal business. He—possibly accompanied by Clemens—met with Jones in New York in late March 1878 and persuaded him to make restitution. Shortly before that, Clemens recorded a less charitable view of Jones in his notebook, calling him a “lying thief” ( N&J2, 54–55; AutoMT1 , 578 n. 321.25–27).
General Hawley] Joseph Roswell Hawley was editor and part owner of the Hartford Courant ( AutoMT1 , 576 n. 317.23–24).
Graham Bell . . . first one that was ever used in a private house in the world] Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) obtained his first telephone patent in March 1876. In early 1877 only six telephones were actually in use, but by November of that year “three thousand telephones were leased with the apparatus needed for their practical use.” When Clemens installed his line to the Courant office sometime in late December 1877 or January 1878, it was not the first in Hartford, but was quite possibly the first in a private home. On 24 January he wrote to a friend, “as the Courant is in the center of the business district this telephone is a great convenience to me when I want to send for something in a hurry; but the advantage is all on one side. I get all the benefit & they get all the bother” (24 Jan 1878 to Daggett, Letters 1876–1880; Thomas A. Watson 1926, 76, 134; “The Telephone,” Hartford Courant, 5 June 1877, 2; Hubbard to SLC, 17 Dec 1877, CU-MARK).
We were gone fourteen months . . . his telephone stock was emptying greenbacks into his premises] The family returned in early September 1879, almost seventeen months after their departure. The National Bell Telephone Company, a consolidation of several previous companies, was formed in March of that year with capitalization of $850,000. In June its share price was about $110, but by December its value had risen to $995 ( N&J2, 46–49; Thomas A. Watson 1926, 171; Fagen 1975, 30).
Source documents.
TS1 Typescript, leaves numbered 745–59 (altered in pencil to 755–69), made from Hobby’s notes and revised.TS2 Typescript, leaves numbered 901–14, made from the revised TS1 and further revised in pencil.
Hobby incorporated Clemens’s TS1 revisions into TS2, which he revised entirely in pencil, noting at the top of the first page, ‘Change some of the names, & use it’. The dictation was not published in NAR.