To
William J. Lampton 22? May 1875 • Hartford, Conn.(MS, author’s paraphrase: CU-MARK, UCCL12078)
Told him to serve an apprenticeship for nothing & when worth wages he would get
them.1explanatory note
Textual Commentary
22? May 1875 • To
William J. Lampton
• Hartford, Conn. • UCCL12078
Source text(s):
MS, author’s paraphrase, on back of William J. Lampton to SLC, 20 May 75 (UCLC32172), Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley (CU-MARK).
Previous Publication:
L6, 484–85.
Provenance:
see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.
Honors like misfortunes never come singly, and I am another star (?) to add to your
crown of
glory—I am your cousin—at least, Jas Lampton Esq of this city says so, and I’m
sure, Jas may be relied upon in matters genealogic. I am from Kentucky, and have lived
west of the Mississippi about a year and a half
& have known Cousin James since 3 weeks ago. I am book-keeper for the firm whose name
stands at the head of this sheet, and
the longer I keep books the more I feel that I have missed my calling and that “newspaper
man” was inscribed upon
the package of dust from which I was evolved. I’ve tried to get on some paper here,
as reporter but have no influential
acquaintances among the editors; when I heard that you were of like blood with myself
I thought, “try
again,” and your influence might be gained in my favor, with some of your publishing friends.
I’m young & healthy, and not afraid of the disagreeable duties incidental to a first
appearance as quill driver; besides my education & reading give me some confidence
in the less unpleasant portions of the
work. Don’t think because I ante this that I’m impecunious, dead broke short of money or
friends, & seeking to curry favor or funds for it is not so, but from the fullness
of the heart the mouth speaketh
& I’d like to hear from you. East, West, North, South, any-where; daily, weekly, monthly,
quarterly anything.
I am very &c Yours
—W. J. Lampton—
care Garrett McDowell & Co—St L—Mo
William James Lampton (1851?–1917) was the grandson of James Lampton (1787–1865),
one of Jane
Clemens’s seven paternal uncles. He was therefore Clemens’s second cousin (and a first
cousin once removed of
James J. Lampton, the model for Colonel Sellers). James Lampton became wealthy from
iron ore discovered on his Kentucky land, and his
business passed to William’s father, William Henry Lampton (1813–99). In 1873 William
left Kentucky for St.
Louis, where he took a position with Garrett, McDowell and Company, Commission Merchants
and Dealers in Pig Iron. In 1876 he again
wrote Clemens, proposing a visit, and was rebuffed: Clemens wrote on the envelope
of his letter, “Declined to suffer the
affliction of his visit” (Lampton to SLC, 26 June 76, CU-MARK). In
1877 Lampton succeeded in becoming a journalist by launching the Ashland (Kentucky)
Weekly Review, with his
father’s money. Around that time he may have managed to meet Clemens and his family,
as suggested by his close to an
exultant letter of 18 February 1882, on the letter-head of the Steubenville (Ohio)
Herald (CU-MARK):
UCLC41030
You will remember perhaps in 1876 when I was in St Louis keeping books I asked you
to assist me in getting a place in
a newspaper but you told me I’d better stick at what I was. But I didn’t do it, and
five years ago this month I
went to Ky and started down so low as to publish a Republican paper in that state
(Possibly you dont know just what sort of a job that
was. I do—now) Then I went to Cincinnati & then here in 1879 & here I have succeeded
in getting my
name in lots of papers and my picture in several more and this week just 5 years from
my first work on a newspaper I have been offered
& accepted the position of City Editor of the Courier-Journal of Louisville without
any solicitation or knowledge of it
until the proposition was made. That’s all. I feel like I am entitled to this crow
for you were the first man I ever talked
to in the newspaper business and I felt interested in you. No preventing Providence.
I go to Louisville Mch 1st & if you ever come down that way, we will see if we cant find a fresh cork out of
a bourbon bottle for you to smell
at. . . . Remember me to Mrs Clemens and the little chicks.
Yours,
W. J. Lampton
Ed Herald
The editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, Henry Watterson, of course recognized the name
“Lampton,” and may have known of William’s family relationship to Clemens—and, more
remotely, to himself. In later years Lampton wrote several books, as well as humorous
poems he called “yawps,”
which were printed in the New York Sun and collected in Yawps and Other Things
(Philadelphia: Henry Altemus Company, ca. 1900) (Selby, 15, 30, 112; Lampton 1990, 161–73).
Emendations and Textual Notes
Ⓐ Sam’l . . . Conn • a vertical brace spans the right margin of these three lines
MS, author’s paraphrase, on back of William J. Lampton to SLC, 20 May 75 (UCLC 32172), Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK).
L6 , 484–85.
see Mark Twain Papers in Description of Provenance.