January 20 Saturday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to his mother, and sister Pamela:
“I don’t know what to write—my life is so uneventful. I wish I was back there piloting up & down the river again. Verily, all is vanity and little worth—save piloting” [MTL 1: 327].
January 18 Thursday ca. – According to a Jan. 19 dispatch by Albert Evans, San Francisco correspondent for the Gold Hill Daily News, Sam was “in the dock for being drunk over night.” Since Sam and Evans were anything but on friendly terms, it’s probable that Evans would not delay reporting Sam’s misdeeds. Sam appeared before Justice of the Peace Alfred Barstow [Fanning 107-8].
January 16–18 Thursday – Sam’s satire sketch about Albert Evans includes vernacular from a boy, something Sam would use to great advantage in his greatest literary work, Huckleberry Finn. The sketch, “Fitz Smythe’s Horse,” and an item “What Have the Police Been Doing?” ran in the Enterprise between these dates. Most copies of the Enterprise are lost, but it required about three days to travel between Virginia City and San Francisco, and the sketch was reprinted under the heading “Mark Twain” by the Golden Era on Jan. 21, thereby dating the Virginia City publication.
January 14 Sunday – The Golden Era printed Sam’s article, “New Year’s Day” [Walker 111].
January 13 Saturday – The Ajax steamed out of San Francisco “in a pelting rain” on its first voyage to Hawaii. Frear writes:
January 8 Monday – Sam’s San Francisco Letter, dated this day, ran sometime in January in the Enterprise. Sections: “White Man Mighty Onsartain,” “ Mint Defalcation,” “The Opening Night,” and:
THE PORTRAITS
January 7 Sunday – Sam’s article, “Policemen’s Presents” appeared in the San Francisco Golden Era [Budd, “Collected” 1006].
January, mid – Sam was arrested for being drunk in public and jailed overnight. He’d been the object of a police watch, after articles criticizing police corruption and racism.
January – Sam’s San Francisco Letter of Dec. 29, 1865 ran in the Enterprise (See entry.) Another Enterprise item, “New Year’s Day,” was a narrative of Sam trying to find breakfast on the holiday. (Reprinted in the Golden Era on Jan. 14.) [Walker 111-3]. The following items also ran in the Enterprise sometime in January: “The Kearney Street Ghost Story,” “Captain Montgomery,” “The Chapman Family” [Schmidt].
December 31 Sunday – “Convicts” is part of a San Francisco Letter dated Dec. 28 and published in the Enterprise. On Dec. 10 a group of five Comstock reporters sat for a group portrait at Sutterly Brothers in Virginia City, afterwards making the rounds of saloons and ordering a banquet at the International Hotel. All five men were old friends of Sam. Some one (I do not know who,) left me a card photograph, yesterday, which I do not know just what to do with. It has the names of Dan De Quille, W. M. Gillespie, Alf. Doten, Robert Lowery and Charles A.