August 14 Wednesday – the pair arrived in Carson City, Nevada. The 20-day trip is recounted in Roughing It. The Clemens brothers boarded with Mrs. Margret Murphy, a “genial Irish-woman…a New York retainer of Governor Nye” [MTB 176]. Note: Murphy was “Bridget O’Flannagan” in RI [RI 1993, 613]. In 1860 the population of Carson City was a mere 701 souls and Virginia City 2,437; in 1861 Carson had doubled to 1,466; Virginia City had exploded to 12,704 [Mack’s Nevada: a History of the State, 1936].
Antonucci writes:
In the dormitory at Ormsby House and around Mrs. Murphy’s dining table, Sam heard “a world of talk” about the wonders of Lake Tahoe, called Lake Bigler in 1861. Members of the Irish Brigade had been there and established a timber claim in anticipation of a lumbering boom. Sam’s curiosity and newly kindled desire to make a similar claim motivated him to visit the lake. The Irish Brigade offered the use of their rowboat beached at the northeast corner of the lake and access to their food and supplies cache on the North Shore [95]. Note: editorial emphasis. See Sept. 14-17.
Stewart names members of the Irish Brigade in his MTJ article, “Sam Clemens’s Friends at Lake Tahoe”:
“The brigade’s formal name was ‘John Nye & Co.’ Listed in the partnership agreement are P.G. Childs, John Nye, John Ives, James E. Coulter, Johannes C. Slott, I.M. Luther, J.H. Kinkead, W.H. Wagner, James Neary, Thomas Smithson and John C. Burche” [100-101]. Editorial emphasis.
Sam once visited the Chinese Free Mason Hall in Carson, probably shortly after arriving [Jones 364].