February 26 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam replied to (Major “Alligator Jack”) John B. Downing (1834-1914), Mississippi pilot for nearly three decades. Downing’s letter is not extant.
Dear Major, / No; it was to [Horace] Bixby that I was apprenticed. He was to teach me the river for a certain specific sum. I have forgotten what it was [$500], but I paid it. I steered a trip for Bart Bowen, of Keokuk, once on the A.T. Lacy, & I was partner with Will Bowen on the A.B. Chambers (one trip), & with Sam Bowen a whole summer on a small Memphis packet [John H. Dickey from Aug. 4 to Oct. 20, 1858].
The newspaper report you sent me is incorrect. Bixby is not 67; he is 97. I am 65 myself, & I couldn’t talk plain & had just begun to walk when I apprenticed myself to Bixby who was then passing himself off for 57—& successfully too, for he always looked 60 or 70 years younger than he really was. At that time he was piloting the Mississippi on a Potomac commission granted him by George Washington, who was a personal friend of his before the Revolution. He has piloted every important river in America on the commission & has also used it as a passport in Russia. I have never revealed these facts before. I notice, too, that you are deceiving the people concerning your age. The printed portrait of you which you enclosed is not a portrait of you, but a portrait of me when I was 19. I remember very well when it was common for people to mistake Bixby for your grandson. It is spreading, I wonder—this disposition of pilots to renew their youth by doubtful methods? Beck Jolly and Joe Bryan—they probably go to Sunday school now—but it will not deceive.
Yes, it is as you say. All of the procession but a fraction has passed. It is time for us to fall in [MTP:TS
Paine, Mark Twain’s Letters 1917, p.674]. See Aug. 15, 1881 entry, Vol I. Horace Bixby (1826-1912).
Sam’s notebook: “Vienna, Feb. 26. Bliss’s statement to Jan. 1. No mention in it of money for advance-matter to McClure’s Magazine. Have written him I expect $1000 for it. It was salable to the Century for that” [NB 42 TS 56]. Note: a bone of contention which Bliss would finally relent on.