November 30 Friday – Sam’s 31 st birthday. He wrote at least three letters to the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, reporting on some of the stops on his interior lecture tour. The first known of these, MARK TWAIN’S INTERIOR NOTES ran with descriptions of Marysville, Grass Valley, The Eureka Mine, Nevada, and: Sacramento
November 13 Tuesday – Sam arrived back in San Francisco at night [MTL 1: 366n4].
November 12 Monday – At noon, Sam and Denis McCarthy left Virginia City by the Pioneer Stage via Donner Lake route for San Francisco. Just as the stage was leaving from in front of the Wells Fargo office, the chief of police George Birdsall handed Sam a package containing his watch, money, two jackknives, corkscrew, toothpick, three lead pencils, and the masks worn by the “robbers.” According to this account, Sam refused to shake hands with Birdsall and ordered the stage driver to go on. McCarthy was a likely accomplice to the joke [Clark 903-4].
November 11 Sunday – Sam’s CARD TO THE HIGHWAYMEN ran in the Enterprise:
November 9 Friday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Silver City, Nevada.
November 8 Thursday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Dayton, Nevada, probably at the Odeon Hall Saloon, where Sam sometimes drank and played billiards. He arrived in Virginia City “about 12 in the evening…from Dayton” [Clark 903].
November 7 Wednesday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Washoe City, Nevada sometime between these dates [MTL 1: 366n3; MTPO “Mark Twain on the Platform”]. “Card from Mark Twain” dated Nov. 1 ran in the Enterprise [Camfield bibliog.].
November 1 Thursday – Sam sent a telegraph to Abraham V.Z. Curry (1815-1873), John Neely Johnson (1825-1872), Robert M. Howland and others to confirm he would be in Carson City the next day to speak there on Saturday evening. Howland had sent Sam a letter dated Oct. 30 with over 100 signatures of prominent Carson City citizens who wanted to hear Sam’s “Sandwich Islands” lecture. The list included Henry Goode Blasdel (1825-1900), Governor of Nevada. Sam wrote to him, agreeing to speak on the stage of the Carson Theatre and:
October 27 Saturday – Sam and McCarthy arrived back at Virginia City about ten p.m.
October 23 Tuesday – Sam gave the lecture “Sandwich Islands,” in the Nevada Theatre in Nevada City, California, a short distance from Grass Valley. Sam stayed at the National Exchange Hotel. The local newspaper Transcript wrote: “Mark Twain” as a lecturer is far superior to “Artemus Ward” or any of that class….We bespeak for him large audiences wherever he goes [Sanborn 300].