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].
October 26 Monday – The Virginia City Bulletin reported: Mark Twain and Charley Parker of the Bulletin responded to toasts to the press on the housing of the new fire engine [The Twainian, Nov.-Dec. 1948 p 4].
October 20 Tuesday ca. – Sam returned to Virginia City. He and Dan De Quille rented rooms together [MTL 1: 266]. (See Oct. 28 entry.)
October 19 Monday – Sam wrote up the Fair for the Territorial Enterprise. His article, FIRST ANNUAL FAIR OF WASHOE AGRICULTURAL, MINING AND MECHANICAL SOCIETY, was printed sometime later in October (Camfield’s bibliog. lists the print date as Oct. 20). Sections included: Triumphal Parade; Great Pantomime Speech; Races Saturday Afternoon; A Hint to Carson; and, The Fair a Success and a Valuable Lesson [Smith 80-6].
October 12 through 17 Saturday – Sam covered the First Annual Fair of the Washoe Agricultural, Mining and Mechanical Society [MTL 1: 266].
October 11 Sunday – Sam’s “The Great Prize Fight” was published in the Golden Era [Walker 24].
October 9 Friday ca. – Sam left San Francisco for Carson City.