December 8 Tuesday – Another “Letter from Mark Twain,” from Carson City, dated (Dec. 5) ran in the Enterprise. Sections: “Church in Carson,” “Questions of Privilege,” “Mr. Stern’s Speech” [Smith 92-5]. Krause gives all of “Mr. Stern’s Speech” parody [58] and discusses allusions [59-60].
December 6 Sunday – Sam’s article “A Tide of Eloquence” was reprinted in the Golden Era [Walker 66]. It was printed in the Enterprise sometime in November [Camfield bibliog.].
December 2 Wednesday – “Mark Twain on Murders” ran in the Morning Call [Camfield bibliog.]. This most likely was another reprint of an Enterprise article from a few days before. A teamster was murdered and robbed on the public highway between Carson and Virginia, to-day. Our sprightly and efficient officers are on the alert. They calculate to inquire into this thing next week. They are tired of these daily outrages in sight of town, you know [Fatout, MT in VC 114-5].
November 30 Monday – Sam’s 28 th birthday. He attended the ball and supper at Sutliffe’s Hall by the Virginia City Eagle Engine Company, where he gave a speech [ET&S 1: 331].
November 19 Thursday – Another “Mark Twain’s Letter” (dated Nov. 14) ran in the Morning Call. Subheadings: Nevada Constitutional Convention; Boundary of the State; Right of Suffrage; Corporations; Nevada; Officers; Miscellaneous [Camfield bibliog.].
November 15 Sunday – Sam dated a letter from Carson City to the Enterprise that was as “casual sequel to the “Bloody Massacre” hoax. The letter was published on Nov. 17.
November 7 Saturday – “Letter from Mark Twain,” Carson City, this date, “political convention,” was published later in the month in the Enterprise [Smith 86]. (Camfield places the print date as Nov. 10 [biblio.]).
October 31 Saturday – The “Stock Broker’s Prayer,” a burlesque Lord’s prayer, attributed to Sam, ran in the Amador Weekly Ledger, probably reprinted from an earlier lost Enterprise item:
October 29 Thursday – Sam revealed in the Enterprise that the “Bloody Massacre” story was a hoax:
I TAKE IT ALL BACK
October 28 Wednesday – Sam’s hoax, “A Bloody Massacre near Carson,” for which he received a tempest of indignation and protest, ran uncensored in the Enterprise. (Most everything local reporters wrote was uncensored.) This piece was a fiction-hoax of one Pete Hopkins, who’d gone insane and chopped up his wife and seven of his nine children with an axe and club, afterwards riding into Carson City with his throat cut from ear to ear. The story was widely reprinted [Fatout, MT Speaks 15; ET&S 1: 324-6].