April 22 Wednesday – Sam returned to Sacramento [MTL 2: 210]. Sam was learning that he could not base his Holy Land book on wholesale ridicule of what many felt were sacred sites and edifices, nor could he write essentially a put-down of the Pilgrims on the voyage, no matter how well done or deserved. The newspaper reviews of his California lectures were definitely a mixed bag.
April 23 Thursday – The Grass Valley Daily Union gave Sam this review:
April 24 Friday – Sam arrived in Virginia City at 5 AM [MTL 2: 211n1]. The day was clear and pleasant. Alfred R.
April 26 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Fifty-four” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 291-6]. The Virginia City Daily Trespass reported that Sam appeared “a little lean to what he used to,” but that he talked as rapidly as ever—“gets out a word every three minutes” [Fatout 80].
April 27 Monday – Sam gave his “Pilgrim” lecture in Virginia City at Piper’s Opera House. Sam competed with two large balls given in honor of the 49th anniversary of the Odd Fellows, so did not get a full house for his lecture [Sanborn 394].
April 28 Tuesday – Sam and Joe Goodman called on Alfred Doten and Philip Lynch at the Gold Hill Daily News office. The four shared a bottle of champagne [Clark 996].
In the evening, Sam repeated his “Pilgrim” lecture at Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City. From Doten’s journal:
April 29 Wednesday – Sam went to Carson City and gave his “Pilgrim” lecture at Carson Theater [Sanborn 394; MTPO].
April 30 Thursday – Sam gave his “Sandwich Islands” lecture in Carson City as a school benefit [MTL 2: 213].
May – Sam’s hilarious article, “My Late Senatorial Secretaryship,” was printed in the Galaxy Magazine for May 1868 [Budd, “Collected” 1008].
May 1 Friday – Sam returned to Virginia City, where he began a letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks:
“My Dear Mother—I cannot go a-Maying today, because it is snowing so hard—& so I have been writing some newspaper letters…”
Sam left the letter unfinished until he returned to San Francisco [MTL 2: 211]. Sam spent a couple of days “to shake hands and swap yarns with his old friends” [MTL 2: 213].
May 3 Sunday – Sam left Virginia City for the trip over the Sierra Nevada, which, due to the late spring snows and railroad repairs, was one of train plus stagecoach for a 30-hour trip to San Francisco [MTL 2: 213n3-4].
May 4 Monday – Sam was in transit to San Francisco, by stage and by train. He spent the night in Sacramento [MTL 2: 215n8].
May 5 Tuesday – Sam departed Sacramento at 2 PM on the California Steam Navigation Company’s Capital, with his friend Edward A. Poole as captain. Sam arrived back in San Francisco and stayed at the Occidental Hotel again, and finished his letter of May 1 to Mary Mason Fairbanks.
May 12 Tuesday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to Mary Mason Fairbanks, including a photograph he had forgotten to include in his letter of May 5.
He also wrote to Frank Fuller about his success in lecturing, his plans to go east the first of July and the news that his book would be issued from the press early in December [MTL 2: 216].
May 17 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Fifty-one” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 296-301].
May 18-23 Saturday – Sam wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “Happy Memories of the Dental Chair” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxiv].
May 19 Tuesday – Sam’s fourth LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN, dated May 1 from Virginia City, Nevada ran in the Chicago Republican and included: “Bad Jokes,” “LITERARY DEBAUCH,” “HONOR TO WHOM, &C.,” “PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL,” “MAY DAY – A CONTRAST,” and:
AT SEA.
Special Correspondence of the Chicago Republican.
May 21 Thursday – Barton W. Stone Bowen died in Hannibal from a steamboat accident. Bart was a good friend of Sam’s and a fellow pilot; he befriended Sam and offered financial assistance at the time of Henry Clemens’ death. [MTL 4: 119n6].
May 28 Thursday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to Elisha Bliss about Bancroft & Co. Publishing handling book sales on the West Coast and in Japan and China.
“I shall have the MSS finished in twenty days & shall start east in the steamer of the 1 of July” [MTL 2: 217-8].
May 31 Sunday – Sam’s fifth LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN, dated May 2 from Virginia City ran in the Chicago Republican and included: “CURIOUS CHANGES,” “BRIEF MENTION OF A FRIEND,” “NOVEL ENTERTAINMENT,” “UP AMONG THE CLOUDS,” and “AMEN” [Schmidt].
June – Sam wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “I Rise to a Question of Privilege” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxiv].
June 7 Sunday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to his mother and family, advising them to keep the Tennessee Land if they had not yet sold it, since the new railroad would make it more valuable. He had washed his hands of trying to sell the land, and Orion made several trips there but failed to sell it [MTL 2: 219-20].
June 13 Saturday – Sam’s letter, “Important to Whom it May Concern” ran in the San Francisco News Letter and the California Advertiser [Camfield, bibliog.].
June 17 Wednesday – Sam wrote from the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco to Mary Mason Fairbanks. He had read a few of the scathing reviews of his “Pilgrim” speech by ministers and others.
June 18 Thursday – Sam’s article, “ANOTHER OLD CALIFORNIAN GONE” appeared in the San Francisco Daily Dramatic Chronicle [Fatout, MT Speaks 56-7].