March 19 Monday – From Sam’s second letter to the Union dated “Honolulu, March 19, 1866” Ran in the Union Apr. 17 1866: THE AJAX VOYAGE CONTINUED:
“We passengers are all at home now — taking meals at the American Hotel, and sleeping in neat white cottages, buried in noble shade trees and enchanting tropical flowers and shrubbery” [Day 17; Frear 19-20].
“Hotels gouge Californians—charges sailing passengers eight dollars a week for board, but steamer passengers ten” [MTNJ 1: 195].
Frear writes of the American Hotel:
The hotel was opened only on the first of that month and was kept by a German, M. Kirchhoff, but an added interest to Mark Twain was that a fellow “lady passenger of high recommendations’ bought a half interest in it, and showed determination to achieve success. And
The hotel was on the upper side of Beretainia Street opposite the end of what is now Bishop Street. … At first Twain took only his meals there and at Laller’s restaurant on Nuuanu Street, rooming part of the time on Emma Street at the old Queen Emma…where St. Andrew’s Cathedral is now, and part of the time on the corner of Fort Street and Chaplain Lane next to “Father” Damon’s home. During the last part of his visit he also roomed at the hotel. On Emma Street he was at the J.H. Black’s, a newspaper man with whom he had been associated as a printer in earlier days. Twain is said to have had a genial table at the hotel, at which he presided as the “autocrat” [20 & n5]. Note: editorial emphasis.