April 19 Tuesday – Ruel Colt Gridley (1829-1870), an “old schoolfellow of Mark Twain’s” and owner of the Gridley Store in Austin, made a wager on the outcome of a city election, with the loser having to carry a fifty-pound sack of flour from Austin to Clifton, a mile and a quarter’s distance [Fatout, MT in VC 186]. Note: the next day the process began which led to the great flour sack promotions for the Sanitary Fund, a forerunner of the American Red Cross (See May 17 entry.)

April 17–24 Sunday – Sam’s item in the Enterprise Local Column was “Missionaries Wanted.” This humorous drubbing of two locals in a fictional scene was typical of Sam’s barbs for those he wanted to deflate. Such reports won him the title of “wild and unpredictable humorist.”
Yesterday morning [John] Gashwiler and Charley Funck, citizens of Virginia City and of the Territory of Nevada, and officers of the great Virginia and Gold Hill Water Company, came rushing into our office in a state of excitement bordering on lunacy… [Note: John W. Gashwiler (1831-1883) “Old Gash”]

April 16 Saturday – Sam and Dan De Quille had been taking fencing lessons from Professor O. V. Chauvel, who ran a gymnasium at 12 North C Street [Mack 251]. The Gold Hill Daily News ran an article about their fencing expertise:

April 14 Thursday – Sam wrote to Orion, resigning his commission as a notary public for Storey County [MTL 1: 279n9]. No reason was given, but this work was similar to the scraps of work and fees his father, John Marshall Clemens, had sought, and so by association, Sam may have concluded the small fees were not worth the effort. Noted on the letter for Apr. 15 is Orion’s acceptance.

April 1 Friday – “Another Traitor – Hang Him!” a hoax article in the Enterprise is attributed to Sam [Fatout, MT in VC 180]. Also printed in the Evening Bulletin on Apr. 1 as “Another Goak” [Camfield bibliog.].

March 31 Thursday – Adah Menken “suddenly left Virginia without saying goodbye to anybody, and returned to San Francisco.” Of course, she had $36,000 worth of comfort plus gifts of stock certificates bearing a naked lady on a galloping stallion, which she sold a year later for $50,000 [Fatout, MT in VC 167]. She died in 1868 at age 33.

March 3 Thursday – Henry L. Blodgett and Sam. L. Clemens, notaries public, began running advertisements in the Virginia City Evening Bulletin [MTL 1: 279n9].

March 2 Wednesday – Menken and troupe opened at Maguire’s New Opera House. Sam had written a series of reviews including some severe criticism of other companies who performed in Maguire’s Opera House. No doubt he was on hand for Adah Menken’s Virginia City debut. Benson writes, “Every seat in the house had been sold the day previous…as no one wanted to miss seeing the glamorous star” [95]. The show was not a great success due to Adah’s choice of the play The French Spy for opening night, where she wore too many clothes [Fatout, MT in VC 162].

March 1 Tuesday – Governor James Warren Nye (1815-1876) appointed Sam to a two-year term as notary for Storey County [MTL 1: 279n9]. In his Autobiographical Dictation of Apr. 2, 1906 Sam described Nye:

February 27 Saturday – Adah Isaacs Menken (1835?-1868) arrived in Virginia City. In Sept. 1863 Sam saw her in one of her sixty San Francisco performances of Mazeppa, where she rode horseback in nothing but flesh-colored body-tights. Sam wasn’t impressed with her performances. Adah invited Sam to dinner in her hotel room with Dan De Quille and the Bohemian poet Ada Clare (Jane McElhinney, 1836?-1874). Menken’s current husband, her third, poet and dramatic critic Orpheus C. Kerr (Robert H. Newell 1836-1901), was not allowed in the room. The Jewish actress had also been married to John C.