May 17 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Fifty-one” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 296-301].

A typed note in the Apr. 10, 1868 letter file from Robert B. Swain reads that Clemens had the Reverend Dr. Jesse Burgess Thomas (1832-1915) lecture at him on 17 May, around which time he may also have socialized with [Horatio] Stebbins (1821-1902) and Charles Wadsworth, as reported in Barnes’s Call [MTP, see MTL 2: 225-9n2]. Note: see Who is Mark Twain? (2009), pp. 175-181 for Clemens’ article, “I Rise to a Question of Privilege,” a reply to a public rebuke by Baptist minister Thomas about his writings on the Holy Land.