September, mid to late – Although they’d traveled in the same regions, from the Mediterranean to the Mississippi to Washoe mining camps, there is no record before this month that Sam and J. Ross Browne ever met. Browne was a humorist in the Western vein of John Phoenix, Bret Harte, and Mark Twain. He was also an excellent travel writer, currently collecting mining statistics in the West for the U.S. Treasury Department. He was living with his family in Oakland. Note: some scholars have asserted that Browne served literary influence on Sam; Gribben lists one thesis and two of Browne’s articles, one series “A Peep at Washoe” that Sam had recommended to his family and in a letter he wrote jointly with Orion to the Keokuk Gate City, May 10, 1862 [Gribben 90]. According to Francis J. Rock, the meeting happened shortly after Sam’s return from the Sandwich Islands and when Sam was preparing for his first platform appearance at the Academy of Music on Oct. 2. From Rock’s 1929 dissertation on Browne, which includes notes from Browne and this oral testimony from Browne’s son:
“Whilst in this state of apprehension he came upon Ross Browne in San Francisco and delightedly greeted him. ‘Browne, you are just the man I want to see.’ He explained his quandary and expressed his anxiety at not knowing how to approach an audience. Browne was by this time a well-known lecturer and could give him the desired direction. Accordingly, Browne invited Mark Twain home to Oakland with him for the few days previous to the lecture, and urged him to try out his material on his house-full of children. Needless to say, the result was gratifying. The enthusiastic response of the Brownes entirely fortified Mark Twain’s courage” [44-5]. Rock further asserts Browne’s Yusef (1853) “as the direct forerunner of Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad” [72].