S Visit to Mark Twain’S Stormﬁeld in 1909

The Great Silverware Caper of 1908

Exactly what put the events of September 17, 1908 into motion may never be known. What we do know is that two would-be, cracker-jack thieves by the names of Henry Williams and Charles Hoffman decided to take the train from Norwalk to Redding that Thursday with the intent of robbing the home of one of America’s most famous authors – Mark Twain.

The fact that they knew that Twain’s new home was in Redding was probably a testament to the fact that at least one of these two Mensa candidates could read. A July 4, 1908 article in Harper’s Weekly had been the first of many publications that identified the town where Samuel Clemens, AKA Mark Twain, had constructed his new Italian style villa.

Arriving at the West Redding Station during the early evening hours of the 17th, the pair suddenly realized that although they had made it to Redding, they had absolutely no idea where in town Twain’s house was located. No problem. They would stop at the first house they saw and simply ask. Nothing suspicious about two strangers on their way to visit their good friend Mark Twain who had somehow neglected to send a carriage to retrieve them at the station. At least one of them had thought to carry a valise. It contained no clothing, it was brought along to carry the booty the pair was hoping they would find in Redding. Luckily for them, it was James Blackman’s son Lloyd who answered the door and then proceeded to tell the two wayward travelers the correct route to the estate then known as “Innocence at Home.”

The Blackman House on the corner of Station Road and Umpawaug where the burglar’s stopped to ask directions to Mark Twain’s Redding Estate. The house still stands at 313 Umpawaug.

Luck would prevail once the dynamic duo reached the estate. Twain favored cats over dogs and there wasn’t a canine in sight. Had there been a trusty mutt guarding the place, there would have likely been some explaining to do.

Although Williams had brought along a revolver, the pair decided to wait until everyone had retired for the night before seeking entry to the house. Finding a kitchen window still open, they managed to get inside sometime around midnight.

After walking several miles on foot, they must have come to the conclusion that whatever they were going to steal had to be small and light enough to carry and conceal.

Some expensive silver flatware seemed to fit that bill.

Finding the dining room wasn’t as hard as they might have imagined. It was located fairly close to the kitchen they had just entered, and they didn’t even need to wake one of the servants to ask its location. Evidently not accustomed to working in the darkness of night, they lit a pair of hand-held electric lanterns and began searching for Twain’s silverware. The sideboard contained some plated flatware, but it wasn’t sterling silver and one of the burglars noisily dropped one of the unwanted spoons onto the wooden floor. They then found a small English serving table with a locked drawer that likely contained what they were really after that evening. The pair created even more noise when Hoffman clumsily tripped over a brass bowl he had removed from atop the table and placed on the floor after they decided to take the entire piece of furniture out onto to the patio where they could relieve the locked drawer of its contents after popping its lock.

Luckily for our burglars, the dining room wasn’t so far from the kitchen that they would have required a map. The English serving table can be seen to the left of the doorway to the main hall. Note the lock in the bottom drawer.

What the pair hadn’t counted on was the possibility that the noise they were making might arouse someone on the second level from their sleep.

That someone just happened to be Isabel Lyon, Mister Clemens personal secretary, whose sleeping quarters were just above the dining room where Williams and Hoffman were plying their skills as noisy burglars. Miss Lyon ran to the stairs across from her room where she heard the boys below rifling through the dining room and saw the wild flashes emanating from their lanterns as they worked.

Lyon then proceeded to the room of Claude Bluchotte, Mister Clemens’ trusty butler, and he then telephoned Harry Lounsbury, their nearest neighbor. Redding had no established police force in 1908 and the state police were not yet set up as a true law enforcement team, but rather they served as a liquor enforcement agency meant to keep illegal and untaxed liquor from being transported and sold in Connecticut. In lieu of a police presence, towns such as Redding had part-time sheriffs and deputies who served under the High Sheriff of Fairfield County. In Redding, that man was George Banks.

Sheriff George Banks

Harry Lounsbury called Sheriff Banks and he agreed to meet him at the estate as soon as he could get there. With the assistance of Bluchotte the butler and another house guest of Mister Clemens, the men soon discovered a series of footprints outside the dining room that indicated a peculiar pattern. One man was wearing pointed shoes, while the other man’s boots had rubber heels that bore the maker’s trademark.

The dust on the roads of Redding was deep enough that the tracks of both men were easy to follow. The team proceeded until the train tracks of the New York, New Haven, & Hartford Railroad crossed the highway. It was there that the footprints left the main road and appeared to be headed towards Bethel. It was at that point where Sheriff Banks decided to return to the Redding Station in case the robbers were doubling back to escape by rail. Lounsbury and the others continued on, reaching the Bethel railway depot a few minutes before six on the morning of the 18th.

Lounsbury decided to chance it that the two burglars would attempt to head south on the next train and he and Bluchotte waited for the southbound train to Norwalk to arrive at 6:01. Once onboard, they found a pair of suspicious looking men taking their seats in the smoking car, one sitting in a seat directly behind the other.

Lounsbury engaged one of the men in conversation while Bluchotte kept an eye on the other man. Lounsbury soon discovered that the man he was talking to had heels that matched the ones they had tracked to Bethel. Convinced he had found the right pair, Lounsbury continued to talk to the man until they reached Redding where Sheriff Banks boarded the train.

Banks soon accosted the man, demanding that he show him his heels. As the train began to leave the station, the man bolted from his seat and ran to the doorway where he jumped off the train.

Banks immediately grabbed the other man and a fierce struggle ensued. The other passengers in the car – perhaps as many as eight according to the local papers of the day – looked on in awe until there was a flash and a report from the pistol that the man struggling with Banks had pulled from between the cushions of his seat. The other passengers then went to Banks’ aid, with one of them striking the attacker with a club, opening a gash on top of his head. During the struggle, a total of four shots were fired, with one hitting Banks in the leg and the final one wounding the burglar in his own hand.

Conductor John Dyas of Danbury, entered the car as the struggle for the weapon ensued and quickly pulled on the emergency cord, stopping the train a few yards south of where the tracks crossed the river below the Redding station. Banks yanked his prisoner from the train while Lounsbury retrieved a satchel containing Clemens’ missing silverware from beneath the seat.

Witnesses on the platform at Redding saw the other burglar jump from the train and run into Brookside Park. Sheriff Banks crossed the road and several men pointed to where the outlaw was hiding – under one of the bridges. He offered no resistance when Banks ordered him out. Brookside Park in Redding where Charles Hoffman was found hiding under this bridge. Brookside’s entrance still exits between two stone pillars just east of the West Redding Post Office.

Bank’s wound was between his knee and his ankle. It made for a rather grotesque flesh wound, but the bullet had passed cleanly through, causing a fair amount of blood loss, but doing no permanent damage. It also appeared that Banks’ hand had suffered an injury similar to his captive when the revolver had discharged a final time and the single bullet struck both men in their hands.

The prisoners were hauled back to Lounsbury’s house on Diamond Hill, where a telephone call was put into Doctor Ernest H. Smith who resided at the corner of Cross Highway and Sanfordtown Road. Smith was soon on the scene where he treated both Sheriff Banks and the wounded man, soon to be identified as Henry Williams. The home of Harry Lounsbury on Diamond Hill Road where Doctor Smith attended to Sheriff Banks and his prisoner’s wounds on September 18, 1908.

By 9:00 AM on the 18th, the Town Hall on the Green was bustling with people. Even in 1908 Redding with no social media to alert its citizenry of an event so daring and exciting as the Great Silverware Caper, news traveled fast. Justice John Nickerson and the town’s Grand Juror, Henry Duncan, were about to hold a hearing. Nickerson was the Town Clerk and an elected Justice of the Peace. Redding Town Hall where the two burglars were arraigned on September 18, 1908.

The building was literally overflowing with spectators. Redding’s growing literary colony was well represented. After all, one of their own had been wronged on Thursday evening, what if had been one of them?

By then, forty year-old Henry Williams had given the Sheriff his name and age. However, he still refused to give anyone an address. Perhaps he didn’t want anyone to discover that he had previously done time in a New York penitentiary for assault. It would appear from New York penal records, that a Henry Williams, also born in 1867, had served nearly two full years for assaulting another man in 1897. Since finger prints weren’t in use as a police identifier until around 1910, we may never know for certain if Mark Twain’s Henry Williams was the exact same man.

Williams sat at a small table that held the remnants of a sandwich and a half empty cup of coffee someone had kindly provided him while he waited to be arraigned. His head was wrapped in blood-stained bandages and witnesses to the occasion claim he appeared to be in pain.

Thirty year-old Charles Hoffman had freely given his name, age, and address as soon as he had been apprehended. He sat at the same table as Williams and looked at his partner with apparent unconcern.

As only the great showman Mark Twain could, he waited until court was about to convene before arriving in a small, open wagonette accompanied by eldest daughter Clara and his sometimes faithful secretary, Isabel Lyon. Twain was clad in his signature white flannel suit, while the ladies were attired in bright gowns that were more befitting of a formal luncheon outing than an arraignment hearing for the two scoundrels sitting in the Redding Townhouse that morning.

Hoffman was the first to be arraigned. He spoke with a heavy accent, perhaps German or Austrian, as witnesses said he looked the part. Young Lloyd Blackman quickly identified him as one of the men who had asked for directions to Twain’s estate the previous evening. Hoffman yelled that the young man was lying.

At first Hoffman refused to enter a plea, but at the insistence of Justice Nickerson, he reluctantly allowed Jonathon Bartlett Sanford to act as his counsel. Sanford wasn’t an attorney, but he was the judge of probate in Redding, so that must have sufficed. Hoffman then pled “Not Guilty.”

Williams was next. He sat and listened as Miss Lyon, Sheriff Banks, Harry Lounsbury, and Claude Bluchotte recounted the events of the prior evening. He too pled “Not Guilty.”

Bail was set at $1,000 for Hoffman and $2,000 for Williams who was facing more serious charges that included assault, carrying a concealed weapon, and resisting arrest in addition to the burglary charges levied against both men.

While the hearing was underway, Mister Clemens asked the court if he might be excused, and once Justice Nickerson granted his wish, Clemens proceeded outside where he walked across onto the Green and took up a conversation about the exciting events of the night before. Mark Twain was Mark Twain, and no one was ever going to stop him from performing before an adoring crowd. Twain recreating the excitement of the Great Silverware Caper of 1908.

A newspaper reporter found the following note on the front door of Twain’s house that very day: NOTICE.

To the next Burglar.

There is nothing but plated ware in this house, now and henceforth. You will find it in that brass thing in the dining-room over in the corner by the basket of kittens. If you want the basket, put the kittens in the brass thing. Do not make a noise — it disturbs the family. You will find rubbers in the front hall, by that thing which has the umbrellas in it, chiffonier, I think they call it, or pergola, or something like that.

Please close the door when you go away!

Very truly yours,

S.L. Clemens Note hung on the front door to Twain’s Redding home informing future burglars how to proceed when robbing the house.

In November of 1908, the men who stole Mark Twain’s silverware were tried in Superior Court in Danbury. The outcome of that trial was reported in the New York Times:

The New York Times, November 12, 1908 TWAIN BURGLARS SENTENCED. Men Who Broke Into Samuel L. Clemens’s Home Get Prison Terms.

DANBURY, Conn., Nov. 11 – When the trial of Henry Williams and Charles Hoffman, accused of breaking into the Italian villa of Samuel L. Clemens, (Mark Twain,) at Redding, several weeks ago, was resumed in the Superior Court this afternoon, both men changed their pleas of not guilty to guilty.

The court sentenced Hoffman to not less than three nor more than five years in State prison. On the charge of burglary Williams received not less than five nor more than six years in State prison, and on the charge of assault with intent to kill, to which he also pleaded guilty, not more than four years in State prison.

In the 1920’s, several years after serving all ten years of his sentence, a man calling himself Henry Williams wrote a book about the robbery. It was much embellished when you compare his accounting of the events of September 17 and 18 to the reports and court proceedings published in 1908, and several of the accounts appear to be complete fabrication. Whether or not this book was written by the real Henry Williams is still a matter of pure speculation.

Column: Monkeys Samuel Clemens [Mark Twain] said, “I believe our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey.” I would go further and speculate that Mother Nature cooked up Homo sapiens to give the other animals on the planet something to joke about. One need only listen to the evening news to realize humanity could not be the product of a stable or serious inventor, whether you believe a multibillion year evolution or a six-day rush to completion fostered this peculiar organism. Some say I am too critical, too negative in my assessment of man and his future, but step back for a moment and look at where we are and where we are headed.

The tropical rain forests are being converted into Ikea sales items faster than the most adept of men or women can put these particle board puzzles together. The atmosphere on our planet started as a carbon dioxide and methane poisonous soup and is rapidly reverting to its original state. The oceans will soon have more disposable plastic items than fish, and the rivers feeding those oceans already have enough toxic waste in them to keep most multicellular creatures land bound.

Nations that have already cleared their rain forests deplore the actions of nations that are only now destroying their own rain forests. Global warming may eliminate the need for central heating. The only sea creatures with a future are those that can mutate to digest our garbage; currently none appears promising.

But these are all relatively longterm threats to our survival: what about the probability that we shall make it to the end of the year or the end of the week. The prospects are grim. In recent weeks we have seen multiple mass shootings. Of course there have always been concerted efforts by some individuals or governments to murder people, but that background noise of genocides, lynchings, honor killings and other such atrocities has a new feature: the lone wolf with a weapon of mass destruction.

Those of us who live near the site of the Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre need no convincing that even the most innocent of our community is at risk. A semi-automatic rifle in the hands of that neighbor who kept to himself and mowed his lawn on Saturdays, a man indistinguishable from thousands of other men, is a weapon of mass destruction as surely as a nuclear weapon in the hands of an autocrat.

We Americans love things that go bang. To avoid limiting our access to things that can kill people, we are willing to give virtually anyone the same access that we want for ourselves. As a consequence, we have more privately held small arms (more than 380 million), such as handguns, than there are people in the U.S. and its territories. Add to that the various rifles and other lethal devices available to the general public, and you have a public ready for combat. But what happens when there is no common enemy? What happens to all those eager shooters when there is no generally accepted target? For too many, shooting paper targets or even unthreatening wildlife is not satisfying. There must be an enemy to kill. There must be an enemy.

Our government derives much of its power from the desire of its citizens to be protected against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That the citizenry demands access to military equipment means it lacks confidence in the government’s ability to perform one of its core functions: the maintenance of peace and tranquility. This lack of confidence is in large part fueled by the assertions by legislators, governors, and even presidents that they, the general public, are wise to arm themselves.

If these folks agree that the police, the National Guard, the Army, and the CIA are not sufficient (or adequately unbiased) to protect us from lethal attacks, then it is easy to understand why law-abiding citizens fear lawless gangs that are waiting for us to lay aside our weapons so that they can rape and pillage our communities. The irony is that our easy access to firearms places us at more danger than those mythical gangs. That irritable guy watching Law and Order reruns poses more of a danger to you than marauding looters incited by a natural disaster (a scenario invoked by Senator Lindsey Graham as why he wants to have a semi-automatic rifle).

People want to use their weapons, whether those weapons are sling shots or atomic bombs. The physicists working on the Manhattan Project claimed they did not realize the bomb they were building would actually be used to kill people. They certainly did not suspect that the primary target chosen by the military would be a totally civilian enclave. General Leslie Groves, the director of the Project, wanted to bomb Kyoto, a city in Japan known only for temples and schools. It had no military value, but Groves argued its destruction would deal a crippling blow to Japanese morale. Fortunately, his choice was overruled, and Kyoto survived as an international treasure.

Now we have enough nuclear weapons in enough countries to assure the annihilation of much, if not all, of humanity if a single individual decides to go ballistic. As I look at the world leaders with access to these awful weapons, I am not reassured. Trillions of dollars have gone into building these weapons. The justification for building these monsters has always been to protect us from our enemies, but who will protect us from our leaders, whether they be elected officials or self-installed dictators? What megalomaniac tyrant will resist the temptation to unleash these manmade atrocities when he sees his own demise is imminent.

Does anyone doubt that in addition to using poison gas on his own citizenry, spilling millions of barrels of oil into the ocean and blowing up hundreds of oil wells in Kuwait that Saddam Hussein would have hesitated to use nuclear weapons to stay in power if he had any? Since the fracture of the Soviet Union there have been numerous nuclear bombs left unaccounted for. North Korea and Iran have made no secret of their progress toward the manufacture and launch capabilities of nuclear weapons. America, Pakistan, India, Israel, France, England, and Russia have all demonstrated restraint in their use of available weapons of mass destruction, but all that can change overnight with a power grab by a morally neutered strong man.

If these facts do not worry you, I envy you. They keep me awake at night. Many of our fellow citizens have decided to build bunkers and gather weapons in preparation for the coming onslaught, but who do they think is coming for their homes and cars and toaster ovens? We have nurtured a mindset that is destined to destroy us unless we discard it. We are the destroyers: we are our enemy. The monkeys are laughing at us.

Dr. Lechtenberg is an Easton resident who graduated from Tufts University and Tufts Medical School in Massachusetts and subsequently trained at The Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan. He worked as a neurologist at several New York Hospitals, including Kings County and The Long Island College Hospital, while maintaining a private practice, teaching at SUNY Downstate Medical School, and publishing 15 books on a variety of medical topics. He worked in drug development in the USA, as well as in England, Germany, and France.

Stroke Weather Charles Dudley Warner famously observed, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Although that 1897 insight is usually attributed to Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain), it was the Harford Courant editor Warner who first published the comment. His statement has held true for more than 120 years and seems likely to apply for another 120 years. Since he stated the obvious, much has transpired that could have invalidated his observation. Weather scientists have identified measures that could change global weather patterns, but people with the power to adopt those measures have failed to do anything consequential.

Despite on-going public relations campaigns to convince the general public that global warming is a hoax, the planet itself appears indifferent to these reassuring press releases and continues its melting of the polar ice caps. As carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases accumulate, physics insists that the planet heat up. We have known for many years that these gases have been accumulating and why they are accumulating, but governments have failed to act to reverse or even limit the accumulation of these gases. Perhaps this failure to act comes from a desire to see a much warmer planet, but one of the many ironies of this warming is that Connecticut will get colder in the winter and more susceptible to violent storms in the summer and fall as the planet warms.

I recognize how counterintuitive a colder Connecticut is with global warming, but you can bet your space heaters on the inevitability of this outcome. It is mostly about the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a current of relatively warm water the extends up from the Gulf of Mexico, along the coast of the southeastern United States, around the tip of Florida, and up the east coast of the United States. This relatively warm water keeps Connecticut from enjoying the much colder weather experienced by residents of North Dakota. Hartford, Conn. is at 42 degrees north of the equator and Fargo, N.D. is only slightly farther north at 46 degrees north of the equator. Both cities are halfway to the north pole, but Hartford benefits from the warmth of the Gulf Stream.

Unfortunately, the integrity of the Gulf Stream depends upon the salt content of the oceans. I shall not burden you with why ocean salinity enables the formation and preservation of massive “rivers” in the oceans, such as the Gulf Stream. Suffice it to say that as the polar ice caps and glaciers melt, the amount of salt in a gallon of sea water decreases. When ice forms, it does not contain any salt. Salt water separates into ice and salt as it freezes. Eat a snowball: it never tastes salty unless your dog urinated on it before your taste test. As the ice melts, it releases salt-free water into the ocean. Melting the polar ice caps effectively dilutes the salt content of the oceans. As the ocean gets “less salty,” the Gulf Stream disappears. Without a Gulf Stream running along our seashore, we might as well move to Fargo, N.D. The weather will be the same here and there. As the planet warms, Connecticut freezes.

With the cold come medical catastrophes, including heart attacks, fractured hips and strokes. The basis for heart attacks and hip fractures are obvious. Shoveling snow, pushing vehicles stuck on ice, and other such exertions stress the heart and encourage it to fail. Icy walkways combine with gravity to pull the more unstable of us to the ground and test the resiliency of our hips. Most hearts over 60 years old fail the exertion test and virtually every hip over 65 years old will fail the slip and fall test. It is obvious why people have more heart attacks and fractured hips in the winter, but, you ask, “Why more strokes?”

A stroke is permanent brain damage. The brain needs blood flow to survive. Most strokes occur when blood flow to the brain is interrupted. Over the decades that I treated stroke patients, I noticed that the frequency of strokes increased sharply with an abrupt freeze. Obviously strokes occur in parts of the country that hardly ever have very cold weather, but in New England there is an obvious spike in strokes when the temperatures dips into the 20s (degrees Fahrenheit) or lower. Blood from your heart needs to travel through your neck to get to the brain. I suspect that blood traveling through your neck may cool slightly when exposed to especially cold air, and this may be a factor in the increased risk of stroke.

Obviously the blood does not freeze, but something encourages clot formation or the release of clots that have formed on areas damaged by hardening of the arteries. Blood clots flow upstream to the brain and block blood vessels that are smaller than the clots. The body has a system to help break up these clots, but if that system fails, the part of the brain dependent on the blocked blood vessel dies. Without blood flow, you suffer a stroke. About one-third of strokes caused by blocked blood vessels are fatal. If you survive, you may be left with paralysis, seizures, visual loss, language problems, or numerous other neurologic problems.

Your risk of stroke increases with chronically high blood pressure or blood cholesterol levels, diabetes mellitus, inherited clotting disorders, cigarette smoking, obesity and a variety of other factors, some of which you can control and some of which are beyond your control. Which category global warming falls into depends on international action or inaction. If we continue to use carbon-based fuels and burn the tropical rain forests, the planet will continue to warm, and Easton, Conn. will continue to cool. As our winters grow colder, we shall have more health problems, including strokes. As I write this, the temperature outside is 21 degrees, and it is expected to dip to 14 degrees Fahrenheit. This is stroke weather. Bundle up.

Part of the Historical Society of Easton’s Year of the Woman series.

In March of 1894, fourteen-year-old Helen Keller met Samuel Clemens for the first time at a gathering at Laurence Hutton’s New York home. Hutton was the literary editor of Harper’s Magazine at the time. After being introduced to Clemens, Helen sat on a couch beside him while he began to recount one of his many humorous tales. She listened by pressing her fingers across his lips.

From his autobiography, Twain’s own words about that first encounter: “I told her a long story, which she interrupted all along and in the right places, with cackles, chuckles and care-free bursts of laughter,” he recalled. “Then Miss Sullivan put one of Helen’s hands against her lips and spoke against it the question, ‘What is Mr. Clemens distinguished for?’ Helen answered, in her crippled speech, ‘For his humor.’ I spoke up modestly and said, ‘And for his wisdom.’ Helen said the same words instantly -‘and for his wisdom.’ I suppose it was mental telegraphy for there was no way for her to know what I had said.” From that initial encounter, an unlikely friendship began between an aging author and a brilliant young woman that would last beyond the years that Clemens would remain on this earth. “Mr. Clemens told us many entertaining stories, and it made us laugh till we cried,” Helen would later write a friend. “I think ‘Mark Twain’ is a very appropriate nom de plume for Mr. Clemens because it has a funny and quaint sound that goes well with his amusing writing, and its nautical significance suggests the deep and beautiful things he has written.”

Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan Macy, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), and Laurence Hutton. Photo taken at Hutton’s home in Princeton, New Jersey in 1905. Eighteen months later, Clemens recorded his impressions of the young girl: “Helen Keller has been dumb, stone-deaf, and stone blind, ever since she was a little baby a year and a half old; and now at sixteen years of age this miraculous creature, this wonder of all ages, passes the Harvard University examination in Latin, German, French history, belles lettres, and such things, and does it brilliantly, too, not in a commonplace fashion. She doesn’t know merely things, she is splendidly familiar with the meanings of them. When she writes an essay on a Shakespearean character, her English is fine and strong, her grasp of the subject is the grasp of one who knows, and her page is electric with light. Has Miss Sullivan taught her by the methods of India and the American public school? No, oh, no; for then she would be deafer and dumber and blinder than she was before. It is a pity that we can’t educate all the children in the asylums.”

At the time, Clemens was nearly broke. He had invested his money poorly, losing most of his savings and a good deal of his wife’s inheritance. In the early 1890’s he had become good friends with Henry Huddleston Rogers, a principal in Standard Oil, who soon became his trusted financial advisor. With Rogers’ help, Clemens was able to profit from several European tours and speaking engagements and then slowly pay off his creditors over the final years of the 19th century.

Unable to financially assist Ms. Keller in her pursuit of a university education on his own, Clemens turned to his friends, the Rogers, with the following 1896 plea sent to Mrs. Rogers in a letter:

“For & in behalf of Helen Keller,

Mr. Rogers will remember our visit with that astonishing girl at Laurence Hutton’s house when she was 14 years old. Last July, in Boston, when she was 16, she underwent the Harvard examination for admission to Radcliffe College. She passed without a single condition. She was allowed only the same amount of time that is granted to other applicants, and this was shortened in her case by the fact that the question-papers had to be read to her. Yet she scored an average of 90, as against an average of 78 on the part of the other applicants.

It won’t do for America to allow this marvelous child to retire from her studies because of poverty. If she can go on with them, she will make a fame that will endure in history for centuries. Along her special lines she is the most extraordinary product of all the ages. I beg you to lay siege to your husband and get him to interest himself and Messrs. John D. & William Rockefeller and the other Standard Oil chiefs in Helen’s case…to pile that Standard Oil Helen Keller College Fund as high as they please; they have my consent.”

As a result of that letter, the Rogers personally took on the responsibility of providing the funds for Helen’s education at Radcliffe. Clemens’ praise and admiration for Helen continued beyond her graduation and into her adult life.

The pair often exchanged notes and letters, and sometimes crossed paths at different literary events and social functions.

Samuel Clemens’ 7oth birthday dinner in New York in December of 1905 A letter from Helen Keller to Samuel Clemens dated December 8, 1905 commemorating his seventieth birthday:

My dear Mr. Clemens,

I have just finished reading a most interesting account of the Thanksgiving dinner that was given in honor of your seventieth birthday more than a week ago in New York. Although I am somewhat in the rear of the great procession which brought you its tribute of love and admiration, yet you will accept my little handful of flowers gathered in the garden of my heart, will you not? They are not intended so much for the great author whom the world has crowned with its choicest blossoms as for the kind, sympathetic, noble man, the best of friends and champions with the heart of Santa Claus, who makes others good and happy. Your birthday shall always be a Thanksgiving Day to me. Indeed, I have thanked you a thousand times for the bright laugh that is like a drop of honey in things bitter that we must all taste, before we learn to know good from evil, and distil sweetness and peace from deprivation and sorrow. I thank you, too, for the flash and tingle along the veins when your fiery words smite the wrong with the lightning of just anger. Again, I thank you for the tears that soften the heart and make it compassionate and full of kindness. Your message to the world has been one of courage and brightness and tenderness, and your fellowmen make a feast on your anniversary, and give thanks for the many days that you have lived among them. And you are seventy years old? Or is the report exaggerated like that of your death? I remember, when I saw you last, at the house of dear Mr. Hutton in Princeton, you said, “If a man is a pessimist before he is forty-eight, he knows too much. If he is an optimist after he is forty-eight, he knows too little.” Now we know you are an optimist, and nobody would dare to accuse one on the “seven-terraced summit” of knowing little. So probably you are not seventy after all, but only forty-seven! But even at forty-seven we love you and wish you God speed! and the fulfilment of every desire that can bring you peace and joy. And should you really attain to that alpine height of seventy years, you shall still hear the voice of affection that springs upward like a flame, and carries warmth and comfort to the lonely climber who has met with bereavement and sorrow on his skyward pilgrimage. Mrs. Macy and her husband join me in sending you sincere love and admiration.

Your friend,

Helen Keller

Built in 1908, the original name of the Stormfield estate in Redding was “Innocence at Home.” Clemens’ daughter Clara hated the name and convinced her father to change it to Stormfield in 1909. This postal card, with Clemens’ hand-written comments on the top was sent to Helen Keller in October of 1908 in anticipation of her upcoming visit scheduled for January 8-11, 1909. In January of 1909, 28-year old Helen Keller visited Samuel Clemens at his home, Stormfield, in Redding. One might assume Easton’s most famous resident was simply paying a neighborly visit to Clemens a few miles away, but the fact is Helen Keller didn’t move to Easton until the late 1930’s when Gustav Pfeiffer convinced her to leave her home in Forrest Hills, New York to move to his little enclave at Aspetuck Corners. Pfeiffer donated the land and raised most of the funds to build Keller’s house, Arcan Ridge, from the plans drawn by architect Cameron Clark of Southport. The home was completed in 1939, and although it was destroyed by fire in 1946 while Ms. Keller and her companion Polly Thompson were in Europe, it was entirely rebuilt using Clark’s original plans for much of the house the following year. In all, Ms. Keller spent the better part of her final 39 years living in Easton.

The 1909 visit to Redding made a lasting impression on Helen. Perhaps it was one of the reasons she acquiesced to Pfeiffer’s request she move to Easton some thirty years later. Helen Keller “listening” to Twain talk with her fingers. Photo taken January 10, 1909 by Clemens’ secretary, Isabel Lyon at Stormfield January 10, 1909 at Stormfield. Helen Keller and Mark Twain by Isabel Lyon, his personal secretary. Before leaving Stormfield, Helen made this handwritten entry into Clemens’ guestbook:

“I have been in Eden three days and I saw a King. I knew he was a King the minute I touched him though I had never touched a King before.” – A Daughter of Eve. Helen Keller Jan. 11.

Helen’s unusual entry in Clemens’ guest book was explained by the “king” himself in a footnote after Helen’s comment: “The point in what Helen says above. Lies in this: That I read the “Diary of Eve” all through to her last night. In it, Eve poignantly mentions things that she saw for the first time but instantly knew what they were and named them though she had never seen them before. SLC Jan 8-11.” The mere fact that Clemens saw fit to explain that entry suggests that he fully realized the significance of her intellect and the possibility that her written words may one day become as well read and sought after as his own.

January 11, 1909 entry into the guestbook at Stormfield in Redding by Helen Keller Accompanying Helen on the Stormfield visit was Anne Sullivan Macy and her husband, John Albert Macy. Their signatures appear just below Helen’s comments in Clemens’ guestbook. Macy and Sullivan married in 1905. Macy was 11 years junior to Anne and the marriage seemed more of a business relationship than a true romance – he was Keller’s manager & editor. Their marriage began to fall apart shortly after the Redding visit, yet they never divorced, and John lived in the Keller house until sometime in the 1920’s.

January 10, 1909 at Stormfield. Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan Macy, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and John Albert Macy. Photo taken by Isabel Lyon If you ever wondered how Helen’s companion and teacher Anne Sullivan first became known as the “Miracle Worker,” it came from the inscription that Samuel Clemens wrote on a copy of a photograph shown here, a gift he presented to Anne after the January 1909 visit to Stormfield. The inscription in Clemens’ own handwriting reads : “To Mrs. John Sullivan Macy with warm regard, and limitless admiration of the wonders she has performed as a miracle worker. Stormfield, Jan. 1909.” His signature as Mark Twain is at the bottom. Clemens often signed and gave a copy of this photo to guests at Stormfield, but this one, describing Anne Sullivan Macy as a “miracle worker” in Clemens’ own handwriting at the top confirms that he was the person who gave her that name. Samuel Clemens died in Redding in April of 1910. However, his friendship lived on in Helen Keller’s memory and writings for much longer. In 1939, thirty years after his death, she recalled memories of her visit with Clemens in Redding: “We gathered about the warm hearth after dinner, and Mr. Clemens stood with his back to the fire talking to us. There he stood—our Mark Twain, our American, our humorist, the embodiment of our country. He seemed to have absorbed all America into himself. The great Mississippi River seemed forever flowing, flowing through his speech, through the shadowless white sands of thought. His voice seemed to say like the river, “Why hurry? Eternity is long; the ocean can wait.”

What better way to remember a friend?

Up next: Black Thunder. An original Easton ghost story next Saturday on Halloween.