January 30 Monday – Dick Stoker joined Sam and Jim Gillis at Angels Camp, where heavy rains had shut in the pair since their arrival [MTL 1: 321]. From Sam’s notebook:
“Moved to new hotel, just opened—good fare, & coffee that a Christian may drink without jeopardizing his eternal soul…Dick Stoker came over to-day, from Tuttletown, Tuolumne Co” [MTNJ 1: 76-7].

The hotel was Lake’s Hotel, proprietor Ross “Ben” Coon, a well-known chess player and bartender. Coon was the man who told Sam the jumping frog tale [Sanborn 263]. Rasmussen gives Tryon’s Hotel as the place of Coon’s bartending [99]. Sam first used “Bilgewater” as a character name.