June 21–24 Wednesday – Sam’s LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN – ALL ABOUT FASHIONS was printed in the Enterprise. It was the main body of “Mark Twain—More of Him” written on June 19; see also Sept. 27 entry for reprint in Golden Era [ET&S 1: 304]. An excerpt:

EDS. ENTERPRISE: – I have just received, per Wells-Fargo, the following sweet scented little note, written in a microscopic hand in the center of a delicate sheet of paper — like a wedding invitation or a funeral notice — and I feel it my duty to answer it:

VIRGINIA, June 16.

June 20 Saturday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to Orion and Mollie—all in a dither about Echo stock, of which he had a small share. Sam had speculated on the stock and helped to raise the price later by writing glowing accounts of the mine to the San Francisco Morning Call [MTL 1: 258].

June 19 Friday – Sam wrote “All About Fashions,” (“Mark Twain – More of Him,”) a piece that was published in revised version in the San Francisco Golden Era on Sept. 27. It was probably published in the Enterprise sometime between June 20 and 24 [ET&S 1: 304]. Note: Budd says between June 21 and June 24, 1863 [“Collected” 1001].

June 4 Thursday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to his mother, and sister Pamela, sending another $20 greenback. “…it seems like going back to prison to go back to the snows & the deserts of Washoe, after living in this Paradise. But then I shall soon get used to it—all places are alike to me” [MTL 1: 256].

May, mid – The first two weeks Sam ran around with an old Hannibal friend he bumped into shortly after arriving in the City, Neil Moss, the son of a rich pork-packer. He also met Bill Briggs (b.1831?), John’s older brother, and one of Sam’s Hannibal gang. He took a horse-drawn omnibus from Portsmouth Square to Ocean House, where he walked along the beach barefoot in the surf.

May 16 Saturday – Sam wrote to the Territorial Enterprise, “Letter from Mark Twain.” The sketch anticipated the fictional “Mr. Brown” and “Mr. Twain” of his 1866 Sandwich Islands Letters to the Sacramento Union [MTL 1: 256n1; ET&S 1: 248-9].

May 15 Friday – Sam’s sketch “Stories for Good Little Boys and Girls” ran in the Golden Era [Camfield, bibliog.].

March 31 Tuesday – The Enterprise item, “Captain Alpheus Smith,” is attributed to Sam [Fatout, MT in VC 137]. Fatout presents this article to reflect the “furor” made about the Reese River mining district, and as an object lesson that Sam did not “rush off to the diggings,” because he’d “had enough of that.”

March 20 Friday – partial Enterprise article attributed to Sam, title of this column remains unidentified:

March 1–12 Thursday – Sam’s Local Column in the Enterprise: