January – Sam wrote a spoof of Victor Hugo’s novel, The Toilers of the Sea (1866) while aboard the steamer San Francisco [MTNJ 1: 280-4].

January 1 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Slept on the Cora on floor & hammocks at woodyard first night out from Castillo. Started at 2AM & got to Greytown at daylight” [MTNJ 1: 267].
From Sam’s Mar. 15 Alta letter:

January 2 Wednesday – Sam reported in his notebook that there were two cases of cholera on board. By the next morning two men were dead from cholera [MTNJ 1: 269; Sanborn 314].

January 3 Thursday – From Sam’s notebook:
“9:30 PM. We are to be off the coast of Cuba to-morrow they say—I cannot believe it” [MTNJ 1: 273].

January 4 Friday – Three days into the voyage the ship had engine problems. An engine piece broke and took two hours to repair [Sanborn 314]. From Sam’s notebook:
Capt.—who came aboard at Greytown where in 3 years he had worn out his constitution & destroyed his health lingered until 10 this morning & then died & was shoved overboard half an hour afterward sowed up in a blanket with 60 pounds of iron. He leaves a wife at Rochester, N.Y. This makes the fourth death on shipboard since we left San Francisco [MTNJ 1: 273].

January 5 Saturday – The engine broke again and four hours were lost [Sanborn314]. From Sam’s notebook:
“We are to put in at Key West, Florida, to-day for coal for ballast—so they say—but rather for medicines, perhaps—the physic locker is about pumped dry” [MTNJ 1: 275].
Sam began to make a list of the dead on board and got to number eight [MTNJ 1: 279-80].

January 6 Sunday – Again, the engine broke down and they were dead in the water for another four hours. Even worse news, eight new cases of cholera. The doctor confessed to Sam that there was no medicine. Key West was a day or so away, and the doctor hoped to get medicine there. “I realize that I myself may be dead to-morrow” [Sanborn 314]. From Sam’s notebook:

January 7 Monday – In Key West the San Francisco stocked up on drugs and spare engine parts.
Sam stocked up on Havana cigars before the ship continued on.
“We bought 700 superb cigars at $4 a hundred—greenbacks—better cigars than could get in Cal for $25 a hundred in gold. Town is full of good cigars….21 passengers left the ship here, scared—among them the Jew, the Undertaker, & Goff…I am glad they are gone, d—n them” [MTNJ 1: 286-7; Sanborn 314].

January 8 Tuesday – From Sam’s notebook:
That dirty Dutchwoman & her 2 children—none of them washed or taken off clothes since left Sanf—belong in 2 d cabin—ought to be in hell—purser started them out of the smoking room to make room for card party—Dutchman brought them back soon & said she was sick & should stay there. Well, the woman is sick, & if they don’t take sanitary measures, she’ll stay so—she needs scraping & washing [MTNJ 1: 191].

January 9 Wednesday – From Sam’s notebook: “Belmayne died Jan. 8, & was buried at sea, abreast of Florida.”

January 10 Thursday – From Sam’s notebook:
26 days out from Sanfrancisco to-day—at noon we shall be off Cape Hatteras & less than 400 miles south of New York—(day & a half’s run).
We shall leave this warming pan of a Gulf Stream to-day & then it will cease to be genial summer weather & become wintry cold. We already see the signs—they have put feather mattresses & blankets on our berths this morning [MTNJ 1: 293].

January 11 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:
7 PM—Been in bed all day to keep warm—fearfully cold. We are off Barnegat—passed a pilot boat a while ago. We shall get to New York before morning. The d—d crowd in the smoking room are as wildly singing now as they were capering childishly about deck day before yesterday when we first struck cold weather [MTNJ 1: 295].

January 12 Saturday – About 8 AM, the San Francisco steamed into the icy harbor of New York. Sam took a room at the Metropolitan Hotel, a favorite stop for Californians and Washoe miners at the corner of Broadway and Prince Street [Sanborn 311; MTL 2: 2]. The voyage from hell was over and cholera had not claimed Mark Twain. Sam sent a telegram to the Alta California giving details of the cholera outbreak aboard the steamer San Francisco [MTNJ 1: 296]. Sam planned to publish a book on the Sandwich Islands based on his letters to the Sacramento Union.

January 13 Sunday – Sam’s telegram dated Jan. 12 to the Alta ran on the front page of that newspaper titled “Cholera in Nicaragua” [MTNJ 1: 296n65; Camfield bibliog.].

January 15 Tuesday – Sam wrote from New York to Edward P. Hingston (1823-1876), Artemus Ward’s theatrical manager. Sam had enjoyed carousing with Hingston and Ward in 1863 in Virginia City. He boldly asked Hingston to come from England and be his manager, “Ward is so well established in London, now, that he can easily spare you till you have given me a start.” Sam informed Hingston of his successful tour and full houses and his invitations to lecture in Cincinnati, Boston, and St. Louis [MTL 2: 8-9].

January 17 Thursday – A giant snowstorm hit New York. Temperatures were in the twenties.

January 18 Friday – Sam’s “Letter from Mark Twain” dated Dec. 20, 1866, subtitled “Away” ran in the Alta California, p.1 col. 3 [Schmidt; Camfield bibliog.].

January 19 Saturday – Sam’s article, “Mark Twain On Chambermaids,” was printed in the Californian [Schmidt]. Note: this was collected in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and other stories.

January 30 Wednesday – At the end of January, New York papers announced the “members of Beecher’s congregation are organizing an excursion to the Holy Land, Crimea and Greece. They propose to charter a steamer, and leave in June. Rev. Mr. Beecher and family go with them” [MTL 2: 14]. 

On this date the Alta California posted the announcement. Sanborn claims Sam learned of the planned excursion “sometime after mid-February,” but it is likely that Sam would have noticed the wide exposure within a few days [Sanborn 319].

February 1 Friday – Sam’s Feb. 2 letter to the Alta California referred to the prior night’s visit to the Century Club. (the letter ran in the Mar. 28 Alta.)

February – Sam went to popular shows and lectures, measuring his own attraction against what sold well in the big city. He crammed into a space “about large enough to accommodate a small spittoon” and, on the 3rd, studied the “performance” of the popular preacher, Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1889).

February 2? Saturday – Sam wrote from New York to Mollie Clemens (now in Keokuk), complaining about Orion’s request of him to seek Judge Dixson about an advance on some mining stock. Sam wrote he was going to Washington (he did not go.) He also mentioned some “good offers” he’d had from New York newspapers. Sam soon agreed to supply seven sketches at $25 each to the Sunday Mercury; a sketch for the Evening Express; and reprints of his Sandwich Islands Letters for the New York Weekly [MTL 2: 10-12].

February 3 Sunday – Sam, promised a seat in the pew of New York Sun owner Moses Sperry Beach (1822-1892) if he’d come early, went to Plymouth Church, Brooklyn to hear the sermon by Henry Ward Beecher [Hirst and Rowles, “William E. James” 17]. Sam related the experience in his Alta letter of Mar. 30, 1867:

HENRY WARD BEECHER

February 17 Sunday – From Sam’s Feb.18 Alta letter, published Mar. 30:
BISHOP SOUTHGATE’S MATINEE

February 18 Monday – From Sam’s letter this date to the Alta, published Mar. 30, reveals perhaps his first interest in automated typesetting:

STEREOTYPING MACHINE