February 24 Sunday – Alta California prints Sam’s “Letter from Mark Twain” number 3, dated Dec. 23, 1866, with article “Steamer COLUMBIA at sea” [Schmidt; Camfield bibliog.].

February 23 Saturday – Sam’s Alta letter with this date complained of suffering from “the blues” and that his “thoughts persistently ran on funerals and suicide” [MTNJ 1: 301].

Edward P. Hingston, agent for Artemis Ward. wrote to Sam, letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s Feb. 23 to the Alta. “He is rusticating at the seaside. The hope is that he will be well in a week or two and able to reappear.” [MTP]. Note: the article ran in the Alta on 5 Apr 1867.

February 21 Thursday – This announcement appeared in the editorial column of Street and Smith’s New York Weekly, p. 4:

February 19 Tuesday – At Cooper Hall in New York City, Sam was impressed by the platform speaking of 24-year-old Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842-1932), a Quaker girl who had been speaking for five years. Sam was in the audience at Dickinson’s lecture, “Something To Do, or Work for Women.” Dickinson was a force in the suffrage movement, and instrumental in adoption of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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

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

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 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 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).