May 17 Saturday – Sam wrote from Aurora to Orion about a tiff with three other armed miners who entered and worked Sam’s claim. Such claim jumps could be dangerous business, and Sam referred to the killing of one Gephart on Apr. 11 over such a conflict [MTL 1: 215]. Transcribed from MTP’s “drop-in” letter file:
I thought it was a blank deed which Sam Montgomery sent me.
Send those Spanish spurs that hang in the office, out to “Thomas Messersmith, care of Billy Clagett,” by some safe person. I wore them in from Humboldt.
…

April 18 Friday – Sam, still in Aurora, wrote Billy Clagett about various mining prospects [MTL 1: 192].

April 17 Thursday – Orion wrote to Sam, his letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s of Apr. 24.

April 17 and 19 Saturday – Sam wrote from Aurora to Orion about various mining prospects [MTL 1: 189].

April 13 Sunday – Sam wrote from Aurora to Orion about Indian hostilities he had come through. Also about the mining prospects in the Esmeralda. Sam needed money.

P.S. Remember me  Send me some stamps—3 and 10 cent. to Tom & Lockhart

Esmeralda, 13th April, 1862

My Dear Brother:

April 10? Thursday – Sam wrote a plea for money from Orion for mining prospects in Aurora in a letter that is now lost but quoted by Paine [MTL 1: 184n1].

March 20 Thursday – Sam wrote his mother a hilarious letter about Indians out west. Sam shot down his mother’s assumed fanciful visions about Indians which she reflected in her last letter:

MY DEAR MOTHER:—

Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutored mind,
Impels him, in order to raise the wind,
To double the pot and go it blind,
Until he’s busted, you know.

January 29 Wednesday – Sam and party arrived back in Carson City. The journey was arduous. Sam began a letter to his sister-in-law Mollie about his reaction to the news that his old mule “Paint-Brush” was in Union hands. Sam had ridden the animal during his brief play as a Confederate volunteer in June 1861.

Dear Mollie:

January 28 Tuesday – Sam paid Hugo Pfersdorff $100 for feet in the Alba Nueva ledge [MTL 1: 152n10].

December 11 Wednesday ca. – With a bad case of mining fever, Sam set out for the newly opened Humboldt region with three other men: Keokuk friend William H. Clagett (“Billy”) (1838-1901), Augustus W. Oliver (“Gus”; b. 1835) recently appointed probate judge of Humboldt County, and Cornbury S. Tillou, Carson City blacksmith and jack-of-all-trades. It was a 200-mile trip that took eleven days [MTL 1: 149-50 & n4]. Mack writes that the party did not leave until after Dec. 10, delayed by a fight in the legislature over the county-capital bill [126].

December 8 Sunday – Horatio G. Phillips “Raish” wrote to Sam, surprised his last letter had not been rec’d. He wanted to go with Sam to Humboldt to examine Sam’s claims there but had to “superintend the work in the Tunnel & have not got the means to take the trip with.” He follows with mining misc. [MTP].