September 3 Thursday – The San Francisco Morning Call published another of Sam’s “Mark Twain’s Letters” (dated Aug. 30). Subheadings: Mass Meetings; The Fire; and, Unfortunate Blunder. This last a sketch of Sam’s about a drunk Irishman in Virginia City who mistook a Presbyterian church service for a Union League meeting [ET&S 1: 284-7].
September 4–5 Saturday – In the Enterprise: BIGLER VS. TAHOE
September 5 Saturday – With the return of Dan De Quille, Sam was freed from his duties as the local editor for the Enterprise. He left the same day for San Francisco on the Carpenter & Hoog stage, to Carson City, where he stayed a day with Orion and Mollie [MTL 1: 265; ET&S 1: 291-5].
Years later, De Quille wrote of the conditions in Virginia City upon his return. Sam would return in a few weeks to toil by De Quille’s side. The big fire of 1863 had almost wiped out the town and created a great deal of violence in its aftermath:
September 6 Sunday – Sam left Carson City on the Pioneer Stage for Sacramento with R.W. Billet [ET&S 1: 291-5]. (See Sept. 17 entry.)
September 7 Monday – Sam arrived in Sacramento at 8 A.M [ET&S 1: 295].
September 8 Tuesday – Sam arrived in San Francisco. He would spend four weeks relaxing and recuperating. He moved in high society, attending the theater, attending balls, and playing billiards at the Lick House [MTL 1: 265]. In his Autobiographical dictation of Jan. 23, 1907 he related first playing his first games of bowling in San Francisco. It may have well been during or shortly after this four-week period; the source, however, gives 1865. See MTA 2: 380-81 for the tale.
September 9 Wednesday – Sam attended the Anniversary Ball of the Society of California Pioneers at Union Hall [ET&S 1: 291].
September 13 Sunday – The San Francisco Golden Era reprinted Sam’s sketch, “Bigler vs. Tahoe,” which appeared some unknown time before in the Enterprise. Sam favored Bigler as a name over Tahoe, which he ridiculed [ET&S 1: 288-290].
September 17 Thursday – Sam wrote another “Letter from Mark Twain” (dated Sept. 13.) from San Francisco to the Enterprise about the trip over, first to Carson City on the Carpenter & Hoog stagecoach, then by the Pioneer Stage to San Francisco. The letter included a humorous account of Sam’s traveling companion, R.W. Billet, being gawked at by pioneers who thought him black because he had so much dust on him from the stage trip over. [ET&S 1: 291-5].
September 20 Sunday – The first of three articles Sam wrote for the San Francisco Golden Era appeared: “How to Cure a Cold.” The article was a hit with readers. The Enterprise and the Era were connected by the past work of Goodman, McCarthy and De Quille. Sam recognized the value the Era might have to his career. This piece was revised several times, and appeared later in his Jumping Frog book and was included in Sketches, New and Old (1875) as “Curing a Cold” [ET&S 1: 296-303; Camfield bibliog.].
September 23 Wednesday – Joseph E. Lawrence, editor of The Golden Era, wrote Dan De Quille and commented on Sam’s popularity: “They say the Lick House Ladies give Mark Twain a Ball tomorrow evening – Thursday – He’s an immense favorite with them – ever since his description of their June last reunion, which I copy in the GE this week” [From the Collection of The James S. Copley Library, La Jolla, Calif.].
September 24 Thursday – In San Francisco, Sam attended the Lick House Ball, held at the popular hotel of the same name [ET&S 1: 313].
September 27 Sunday – The Golden Era reprinted “Mark Twain—More of Him.” Sam added a preface to the older article, “All About the Fashions,” that ran in the Enterprise sometime between June 21 and 24. Another article by Sam appeared in the same edition of the Era, “The Lick House Ball” [ET&S 1: 313-319]. Tom Fitch of the Virginia City Union printed a challenge in that paper to Joe Goodman for a duel, to be held at Ingraham’s Ranch in Stampede Valley at 9 A.M. the next morning [Mack 271].
September 28 Monday – The location of the duel between Goodman and Fitch was kept a secret until the last so as to avoid the law preventing the contest. Sam and “Young” Wilson rode horseback out to Ingraham’s Ranch. Major George Ferrand and Cyrus Brown were seconds for Goodman; Captain Roe and Captain Fleeson served that capacity for Fitch. After shooting Fitch in the leg (rumor had it he’d announced he would not shoot above the waist), Goodman rode off at the appearance of a stagecoach. Fitch would limp for the rest of his life, but they became good friends after the duel [Mack 271-2].
Fall – Benson writes: “Ingomar, the Barbarian,” was presented in the opera house in the autumn of 1863. Mark Twain’s connection with this play proved of more than usual significance, because his critique was copied in the East, and we have the first instance of Eastern periodicals printing the Western writings of Mark Twain…. In this Ingomar review, Mark Twain shows a breaking away from the cruder humor that was in evidence in earlier burlesque writings. Gradually he came to depend more and more on cleverness rather than coarseness.
October – “Time for Her to Come Home,” an article in the Enterprise, is attributed to Sam [Schmidt]. Sam alluded to a periodical Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle as his source for euphemistic boxing terminology [Gribben 58].
October 9 Friday ca. – Sam left San Francisco for Carson City.
October 11 Sunday – Sam’s “The Great Prize Fight” was published in the Golden Era [Walker 24].
October 12 through 17 Saturday – Sam covered the First Annual Fair of the Washoe Agricultural, Mining and Mechanical Society [MTL 1: 266].
October 19 Monday – Sam wrote up the Fair for the Territorial Enterprise. His article, FIRST ANNUAL FAIR OF WASHOE AGRICULTURAL, MINING AND MECHANICAL SOCIETY, was printed sometime later in October (Camfield’s bibliog. lists the print date as Oct. 20). Sections included: Triumphal Parade; Great Pantomime Speech; Races Saturday Afternoon; A Hint to Carson; and, The Fair a Success and a Valuable Lesson [Smith 80-6].
October 20 Tuesday ca. – Sam returned to Virginia City. He and Dan De Quille rented rooms together [MTL 1: 266]. (See Oct. 28 entry.)
October 26 Monday – The Virginia City Bulletin reported: Mark Twain and Charley Parker of the Bulletin responded to toasts to the press on the housing of the new fire engine [The Twainian, Nov.-Dec. 1948 p 4].
October 28 Wednesday – Sam’s hoax, “A Bloody Massacre near Carson,” for which he received a tempest of indignation and protest, ran uncensored in the Enterprise. (Most everything local reporters wrote was uncensored.) This piece was a fiction-hoax of one Pete Hopkins, who’d gone insane and chopped up his wife and seven of his nine children with an axe and club, afterwards riding into Carson City with his throat cut from ear to ear. The story was widely reprinted [Fatout, MT Speaks 15; ET&S 1: 324-6].
October 29 Thursday – Sam revealed in the Enterprise that the “Bloody Massacre” story was a hoax:
I TAKE IT ALL BACK
October 30 Friday – The Enterprise ran “Clemens’s Reply to the Gold Hill (Nev.) News” [Camfield bibliog.].