April 2–13 Sunday – Sam went south 120 miles to the Esmeralda mining district with Thomas C. Nye, the governor’s brother, arriving sometime between these dates [MTL 1: 184-5n1]. There he joined Robert M. Howland and Horatio (“Raish”) Phillips. This is where Sam shared the tiny cabin that was restored and moved to a Reno park in 1924 only to be destroyed by vandals in 1944 [The Twainian, Nov.-Dec. 1948 p 4].
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Editor Note
Robert Stewart has sent me some information on Twain's journey to Aurora:
On 10/24/23 19:48, Robert Stewart wrote:
Not sure it matters to you, but in the daily Gribben report on Clemens going to Aurora, he was accompanied by John Nye, James' brother, not by Thomas C. Nye, who was John's son and James; nephew. I thing Tom was serving as James private secretary about that time, though I haven't checked exactly when Tom held that post.
His original secretary, Sam Gallagher, became postmaster in Carson City. He had been James Nye's next door neighbor in New York City, a "clerk" for a newspaper which in those days, in the Census, meant he was a reporter. Bob
On April 2, 1862, Sam and Capt. John Nye departed from Carson City for Aurora. Capt Nye had been a Captain in the New York Militia, and the name stuck. In 1835 he left New York for the gold rush in Georgia, ended up marrying a widow in Alabama who was ten years his senior who needed a male because women could not own slaves and she had come into possession of 14 slaves. She had son Tom in 1842, and in 1849 Capt Nye followed the call of the California Gold Rush. Now a grass widow, she disposed of the slaves to a son-in-law, and Tom's slave was sold and the money used by the son-in-law to educate and clothe Tom. In 1852 or 4 (don's remember but I think '54; he would have been 12) joined Capt. Nye in California.
Also, on Page 69, April 2 to 13, Gribben reports Bob Howland is Gov. Nye's Nephew. An oft; repeated error. There is no blood relationship there. I worked back through genealogy books on both Nye and Howland, and find only that Bob lived a few blocks away from Seward in New York. Howland's tale as told in the West, even in an oral history by a descendant of the Howland family, is in error on several points. A friend in New York wrote a more trustworthy obituary. Case in point: Reports are that Bob saved the daughter of Sen. Seward and her roommate when their school burned (high mortgage and too few students), But the daughter was physically frail and was home-educated--and was provably in Washington with mom and dad that night (Letter to Mrs. Seward) (Bob did man a water cannon during the fire, but that's another true tale). Seward did not give Bob a purse to go West--he cadged $100 from friends then got a position as Steward on the ship and that paid his passage.
Heck, Scott==here's one last item. Frank Fuller wrote a letter about his trip to Aurora with Sam Clemens. He wrote that he found Twain around the capitol looking for news. Sam was not yet a reporter, and was already in Aurora. Fuller did meet Sam (he says it was already "Mark Twain") in Aurora, through a friend Col. Sam'l Youngs, but Frank and Sam could not travel together. And Twain confirms, in a column in the Buffalo Newspaper some years later, that he walked back to Carson City from Aurora. Fuller was also "surprised" at Twain's handling of a pistol in shooting a snake. Clemens was a notoriously bad marksman. Fuller also reports a conversation in which former Gov. Nye spoke ill of Twain, but Nye had died long before the date Fuller gives for that conversation There is little to believe in Fuller's postmortem Twain letter to the New York Times.
On 10/24/23 19:48, Robert Stewart wrote:
Not sure it matters to you, but in the daily Gribben report on Clemens going to Aurora, he was accompanied by John Nye, James' brother, not by Thomas C. Nye, who was John's son and James; nephew. I thing Tom was serving as James private secretary about that time, though I haven't checked exactly when Tom held that post.
His original secretary, Sam Gallagher, became postmaster in Carson City. He had been James Nye's next door neighbor in New York City, a "clerk" for a newspaper which in those days, in the Census, meant he was a reporter. Bob
On April 2, 1862, Sam and Capt. John Nye departed from Carson City for Aurora. Capt Nye had been a Captain in the New York Militia, and the name stuck. In 1835 he left New York for the gold rush in Georgia, ended up marrying a widow in Alabama who was ten years his senior who needed a male because women could not own slaves and she had come into possession of 14 slaves. She had son Tom in 1842, and in 1849 Capt Nye followed the call of the California Gold Rush. Now a grass widow, she disposed of the slaves to a son-in-law, and Tom's slave was sold and the money used by the son-in-law to educate and clothe Tom. In 1852 or 4 (don's remember but I think '54; he would have been 12) joined Capt. Nye in California.
Also, on Page 69, April 2 to 13, Gribben reports Bob Howland is Gov. Nye's Nephew. An oft; repeated error. There is no blood relationship there. I worked back through genealogy books on both Nye and Howland, and find only that Bob lived a few blocks away from Seward in New York. Howland's tale as told in the West, even in an oral history by a descendant of the Howland family, is in error on several points. A friend in New York wrote a more trustworthy obituary. Case in point: Reports are that Bob saved the daughter of Sen. Seward and her roommate when their school burned (high mortgage and too few students), But the daughter was physically frail and was home-educated--and was provably in Washington with mom and dad that night (Letter to Mrs. Seward) (Bob did man a water cannon during the fire, but that's another true tale). Seward did not give Bob a purse to go West--he cadged $100 from friends then got a position as Steward on the ship and that paid his passage.
Heck, Scott==here's one last item. Frank Fuller wrote a letter about his trip to Aurora with Sam Clemens. He wrote that he found Twain around the capitol looking for news. Sam was not yet a reporter, and was already in Aurora. Fuller did meet Sam (he says it was already "Mark Twain") in Aurora, through a friend Col. Sam'l Youngs, but Frank and Sam could not travel together. And Twain confirms, in a column in the Buffalo Newspaper some years later, that he walked back to Carson City from Aurora. Fuller was also "surprised" at Twain's handling of a pistol in shooting a snake. Clemens was a notoriously bad marksman. Fuller also reports a conversation in which former Gov. Nye spoke ill of Twain, but Nye had died long before the date Fuller gives for that conversation There is little to believe in Fuller's postmortem Twain letter to the New York Times.