Territorial Enterprise: Day By Day

1862 or 1863 – 16 th of unidentified month – Enterprise item by Sam. No title.

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.].

April 11–12 Sunday – Sam wrote from Virginia City to his mother, and sister Pamela Moffett.

My Dear Mother & Sister

It is very late at night, & I am writing in my room, which is not quite as large or as nice as the one I had at home. My board, washing & lodging cost me seventy-five dollars a month.

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 16 Thursday – Sam wrote a letter from Virginia City to his mother, of which a fragment survives.
…

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 16–18 Saturday – “Horrible Affair” was published in the Enterprise. Sam wrote that five Indians “had been smothered to death in a tunnel back of Gold Hill.” He included this account in a list of hoaxes some five years after [ET&S 1: 244-7].

April 17 Friday – The Enterprise ran Sam’s article “Latest from Washoe” about the Gold Hill discovery [MTL 1: 251-2n3]:
The recent discovery at Gold Hill has materially advanced the rates of the claims on the main range, and is really of great importance. The discovery consists of a newly developed ledge, of surprising richness, immediately in front of what has been supposed to be the front vein in that locality. Should the new ledge prove to be permanent and continuous, it will doubtless be claimed as a portion of the main Gold Hill possessions.

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 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 19–30 Thursday – Sam’s Local Column in the Enterprise contained “Electric Mill Machinery,” a short squib reporting a new “infernal” invention to “turn quartz mills” [ET&S 1: 413].

April 20 Wednesday – “Frightful Accident to Dan De Quille,” was printed in the Territorial Enterprise. Branch called this sketch “in Mark Twain’s best vein–a typical product of the mutual raillery he carried on with De Quille, resembling his earlier ‘feuds’ with the Unreliable” [ET&S 1: 359].

April 22 Friday – In his Autobiography, Sam wrote of his attempt at a duel with James L. Laird, editor of the Virginia City Union and how it all came about:

April 24 Friday – Sam was up to his old journalism tricks again as he recalled in the Enterprise the excitement of the past week and included a spoof of mining strikes:

April 24 Sunday ca. – Sam got his nose bloodied by George F. Dawson at Chauvel’s Fencing Club, a Virginia City gymnasium. Dawson, an Englishman, at the time an assistant editor at the Enterprise, was a skilled boxer [Mack 252; Fatout, MT in VC 184]. Sam clowned around with a pair of boxing gloves, but evidently Dawson thought Sam was threatening, so uncorked a punch to Sam’s unguarded nose. De Quille claimed a “plentiful flow of claret” and a nose “like an egg-plant” that supposedly embarrassed Sam enough for him to take an out of town assignment for the newspaper.

April 26 Tuesday ca. – Sam left for Silver Mountain to report on mining activity there and to allow his swollen nose to recede for a couple of days.

April 28–30 Saturday – “Letter from Mark Twain” from Carson City, was published in the Enterprise.
“I depart for Silver Mountain in the Esmeralda stage at 7 o’clock to-morrow morning. It is the early bird that catches the worm, but I would not get up at that time in the morning for a thousand worms, if I were not obliged to. MARK TWAIN”[Smith 178].

April 3 Friday – Sam’s Local Column in the Enterprise: “A Distinguished Visitor,” “Clara Kopka,” “The Lois Ann mine,” “ Island Mill,” “Gould & Curry,” and “Minstrels.”

April 30 Saturday – A fragment of Sam’s Enterprise piece about De Quille survives:
DAN REASSEMBLED

April or May 1863 – Sometime during these two months an article titled, “For Lager” appeared in the Enterprise and is attributed to Sam [Schmidt].

August 1 Saturday – The Virginia City Bulletin ran a short article, “Gymnasium” 

“Mark Twain wants a gym in this city. Wouldn’t a bath house afford him as healthy exercise?”

To which Sam answered in the Enterprise soon after:

“Well, my boy, before that gym is completed, we will put you through some evolutions that will make you think a bath house is a very healthy institution. That is if you don’t ‘dry up’ ” [The Twainian, Nov.-Dec. 1948 p.4].

August 10 Monday ca. – About this time Sam came down with a bad cold. (See letter Aug. 19) [MTL 1: 264]. Note: Sam had suffered on and off with colds, and on Aug. 1, Clement T. Rice filled in for him due to a cold.

August 11 Tuesday – According to an article in the Virginia City Bulletin, Sam and Adair Wilson (1841-1912) left in the morning for Lake Bigler (Tahoe):

DEPARTED

Those two pilfering reporters, “Mark Twain” and the “Unimportant,” left this morning for Lake Bigler (Tahoe)….They have left two consumptive “arrangements” to supply their places while they are absent. The “Unreliable” [Clement T. Rice] is lying for the “Unimportant” [Adair Wilson] while a quondam county official is endeavoring to sustain a similar reputation for Mark [The Twainian, Nov.- Dec. 1948 p 4].

August 12–16 Sunday ca. – Sam spent time at Lake Bigler (Tahoe) with Adair Wilson, the junior local editor of the Virginia City Union. Sam loved the Lake and had praised its clean air to his family, so he likely went to recover from his cold [MTL 1: 265n2]. Andrew Hoffman claims he “fell in with a fast crowd there, staying up late drinking too much champagne” [82].

August 13 Thursday – Another of Sam’s “Mark Twain’s Letters” (dated Aug. 8) ran in the Morning Call. Sam wrote again about high yields from the Echo mine. From a high price per share of $140 asked in mid-July, the Echo stock fell to $27 within six months. Subheadings: The City of Virginia; More Fire Companies; Visiting Brethren; Carson Races; Theatricals; Legal Battle; Railroad Meeting; No Democratic Convention; Mining Affairs [MTL 1: 259; Camfield bibliog.].