April 28 Monday – Sam wrote from Aurora to Orion about progress and hopes on various mining ledges. He also noted the family’s reaction back home to his last letter to the Keokuk Gate City:
May 4 Sunday – Sam began a letter in Aurora to Orion that he finished on May 5. He writes about each Aurora speculation and about Orion’s gold sample sent. Clearly, Sam still had the fever [MTL 1: 201].
December 15 Saturday – The San Francisco Morning Call reported that Sam collected $100 from Nudd, Lord & Co [MTL 1: 374n1]. Sam’s article, “Depart, Ye Accursed!” was published in the New York Weekly Review [MTL 1: 330n5]. It was reprinted in the Californian, Jan.19, 1867 as “Mark Twain on Chambermaids” [Camfield bibliog.].
December 9 Sunday – Sam’s article “Mark Twain Mystified” was re-printed in the San Francisco Golden Era.
“I cannot understand the telegraphic dispatches nowadays, with their odd punctuation—I mean with so many question marks thrust in where no question is asked.” Sam complained that this tore up his mind on the “eve of a lecture” [Fatout, MT Speaks 34].
Another article, “’Mark Twain’ on the Dog Question,” was published in the Morning Call [Schmidt].
December 7 Friday – Sam’s letter, MARK TWAIN’S INTERIOR NOTES [III]. ran in the San Francisco Evening Bulletin. Sections: “San Jose,” “Silk,” and “Mark Twain Mystified” [Schmidt].
Camfield and Benson both list “Mark Twain Mystified” as running first in the Evening Bulletin [bibliog.; 165].
December 6 Thursday – Sam replied to Governor Frederick Low and others accepting their Dec. 5 invitation to repeat his lecture on the Sandwich Islands at Congress Hall on Monday, Dec. 10 [MTL 1: 372].
Sam’s letter, MARK TWAIN’S INTERIOR NOTES [II]. ran in the San Francisco Evening Bulletin. Subheadings: “To Red Dog and Back,” “A Memento of Speculation,” “An Aristocratic Turn-Out,” and “Silver Land” [Schmidt; Camfield bibliog.].
December 5 Wednesday – Governor Frederick Low, and Henry Blasdel, Governor of Nevada and others invited Sam by to repeat his first lecture before he departed California [MTL 1: 373n1]. Note:
Lorch concludes it “may never be known” if Sam arranged this invitation, “but it must be confessed that the phrasing …has the earmarks of being genuine” [48].
December 4 Tuesday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to Isabella A. Cotton, one of his companions on the Smyrniote sailing ship from Hawaii, about his plans to leave on the “Opposition” steamer on Dec. 15. He forgot to enclose a picture of himself, and so sent a second note [MTL 1: 371-2].
Sam also wrote his mother, Jane Lampton Clemens, and family. Sam wrote he was:
December 3 Monday – Sam called on Rev. Dr. Charles Wadsworth (1814-1882) of Calvary Presbyterian Church, but he was not at home [MTL 1: 368].
December – Sam’s write up of the Hornet disaster, “Forty-three Days in an Open Boat” was printed in the prestigious Harper’s Monthly, but the piece was indexed to “Mark Swain” [MTL 1: 355n8]. Sam’s notebook labeled such songs as, “Marching through Georgia,” and “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” and “Old Dog Tray,” and “Just Before the Battle, Mother,” as the “d—dest, oldest, vilest songs” performed by the ship’s choir” [MTNJ 1: 262].