I was saddened to learn of the death of Jervis Langdon, Jr. yesterday, and wanted to take this opportunity to remember him as a gracious, generous and public-spirited man. I had the pleasure of meeting Jervis Langdon, Jr. and his wonderful wife, Irene, three years ago in Elmira. I was struck by the way he embraced the legacies of both his great grandfather, Jervis Langdon, and of Mark Twain, with wisdom and sensitivity. While Twain scholars will always be indebted to him for having donated Quarry Farm to Elmira College for use as a Center for Mark Twain Studies, I wanted to recognize, as well, another institution--a younger institution--that he also helped launch. Jervis Langdon,Jr., who was in charge, at various points in his career, of some of the nation's leading railroads and was a member of the Railroad Hall of Fame, also helped sustain the legacies of his great grandfather's commitment to another railroad, the Underground Railroad, by helping to found the John W. Jones Museum in Elmira. With funds supplied by Jervis Langdon,Sr. and others, John W. Jones, a former slave himself, helped make Elmira a key stop on the Underground Railroad, shepherding hundreds of other fugitive slaves to freedom. His "day job" was looking after the dead in Elmira's Civil War prison camp. After the war, when a group of relatives of Confederate soldiers who had died in the prison camp learned that a Black man, an ex-slave--Jones-- had been in charge of burying their dead there, they were outraged. They stormed up to Elmira in a fury, with an eye towards removing their dead for proper re-internment in the South. But when they arrived, the meticulous records kept by Jones (who had been taught to read and write by the same woman who taught Olivia Langdon) stunned them into silence, as did the exemplary grave markings and well-kept graves for which he was responsible. Jervis Langdon, Jr. and Irene Langdon had the wisdom and the foresight to recognize that if action were not taken to preserve a building and other material culture artifacts associated with John W. Jones, that fascinating chapter of history might vanish. They helped found the John W. Jones museum a couple of years ago, an institution that Twain scholars should embrace and support. It was a privilege and a pleasure to have the chance to meet Jervis Langdon, Jr., and I will miss him. Shelley Fisher Fishkin Stanford University