May 28 Tuesday – Sam reported to the Alta and criticized the dry goods multimillionaire’s home (Alexander T. Stewart) saying that it looked “like a mausoleum”: “Verily it is one thing to have cash and another to know how to spend it” [MTL 1: 6-9n11]. Fresh in New York back in 1853 (“I was a pure and sinless sprout”), Sam had been impressed by Stewart’s “Marble Palace,” an ostentatious dry-good store, but now Sam was older and wiser and saw that all that glittered was not in good taste.

May 26 Sunday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “NOTABLE THINGS IN ST.LOUIS,” dated Apr. 16 [Schmidt], mentioned his April visit to Quincy, Illinois and his stay with General James W. Singleton. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” No. 14 [bibliog.]. “Singleton, who had lived on his stock farm near Quincy since 1854 and was noted for his hospitality. As Brigadier-General in the Illinois State Militia, he had played an active part in the Mormon riots during the early forties; tradition relates that he arrested Brigham Young and kept him sawing wood all night.

May 23 Thursday – The fourth of five letters from Hawaii, reprints of five early Sacramento Union letters with “a few minor omissions” ran in the New York Weekly. Dated Honolulu, March, 1866 and beginning “I did not expect to find as comfortable hotel as the American…” this article omitted “the particulars that a lady passenger from San Francisco had purchased a half interest in the American Hotel and that Mr. Laller, an American, runs a restaurant in Honolulu” [The Twainian, Mar. 1944 p2-3].

May 20 Monday – Sam wrote John Stanton (Corry O’Lanus) again, this time advising him of the canceled New York lecture:
“I am one magazine article & eighteen letters behindhand (18 days to do them in, before sailing,) & so I am obliged to give up the idea of lecturing any more. Confound me if I won’t have a hard time catching up anyhow. I shall stick in the house day & night for 2 weeks & try, though, anyhow” [MTL 2: 45].

May 19 Sunday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “AT HOME AGAIN,” dated Mar. 25 [Schmidt]. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” Number XIII [bibliog.].

May 16 Thursday – Sam spotted the ex-leader of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis.

May 15 Wednesday – Sam repeated his successful “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Irving Hall in New York. He planned a fourth New York lecture in Brooklyn at the Academy of Music but canceled [MTL 2: 40]. Note: Several authorities have misdated this lecture as May 16. The New York Times, May 14 & 15 ads, p.7, confirms 15 th . Lorch points out the “enormous” importance of these three New York area lectures—they provided him with added celebrity for the Holy Land excursion, but most of all “his fear of the greater sophistication of eastern audiences greatly diminished” [67].

May 14 Tuesday – Sam wrote to John Stanton (Corry O’Lanus) city editor of the Eagle, asking if “a brother member of the press” might introduce him at his fourth lecture, which was later canceled [MTL 2: 44].

May 13 Monday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “HAPPY,” dated Mar. 15 [Schmidt].
Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” Number XII [bibliog.].

May 10 Friday – Sam repeated his successful “Sandwich Islands” lecture at the Athenæum in Brooklyn [MTL 2: 40]. From the Brooklyn Eagle of May 11: