February 8 and 9 Sunday – In Carson City Sam wrote a long letter to his mother, and sister, Pamela about possibly traveling to California. He speculated that he’d like to return to St. Louis by July by steamer. More mining dreams and talk [MTL 1: 155-63].
January, second half – Sam quit the backbreaking labor after one week. Disillusioned by the exaggerated claims of easy wealth, Sam set out to return to Carson City. He made the return trip from Unionville with Captain Hugo Pfersdorff and Colonel John B. Onstine [MTL 1: 152n13]. Mack includes Cornbury S. Tillou (but calls him “Mr. Ballou”, the same name Sam gave him in RI) in this group, and says they “left Unionville in a blinding snowstorm” [126, 133].
February 17–26 Thursday – Sam’s item in the Enterprise Local Column:
February 3 Tuesday – The article “Letter from Carson City,” signed, “Yours, dreamily, Mark Twain” ran in the Enterprise. This is the first article so signed. In this piece Sam pokes fun at his rival, Clement T. Rice, the “Unreliable” [MTL 1: 246].
January 23? Friday – Sam’s article “A Sunday in Carson” about a murder ran on this date in the Enterprise [Camfield, bibliog.].
January 10 Saturday – Sam’s Enterprise Local Column: “Due Notice,” “New Court House,”
“Music,” and “The Sanitary Ball”:
December 27 Saturday – A. J. Simmons, later speaker of the house in the Nevada legislature, sold Sam ten feet in the Butte ledge, Tehema Mining Company for $1,000, and ten feet in the Kentucky ledge, Union Tunnel Company, both in Santa Clara district of Humboldt County [MTL 1: 278 n8]. Dan De Quille left Virginia City by overland stagecoach as planned for a nine-month visit to his home in Iowa. Benson writes that the expected absence of De Quille was one reason Barstow offered Sam a position [72]. It was feared by some that Dan would not return (see May 1, 1863 entry and the following Dec.
October 20 Monday – Mollie Clemens and daughter and Jennie arrived in San Francisco and were met by Orion. They left immediately for Carson [MTP card file quotes Mack]. Sam was aware of their arrival, as he wrote to them the next day.
September 9 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Aurora, California/Nevada Territory to Billy Clagett, congratulating him on being elected to represent Humboldt County in the Territorial Legislature. Most of his letter deals with “the disgusting subject” of the Civil War and its losses. In part: For more than two weeks I have been slashing around in the White Mountain District, partly for pleasure and partly for other reasons. And old Van Horn was in the party. He knows your daddy and the whole family, and every old citizen of Keokuk. He left there in ’53.
August 7 Thursday – Sam vacillated, hating to admit failure as a miner. He wrote from Aurora to Orion, telling him of Barstow’s offer of $25 week as a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise. Sam decided to think on the matter. His decision shaped the course of his life.
My Dear Bro:
Barstow wrote that if I wanted the place I could have it. I wrote him that I guessed I would take it, and asked him how long before I must come up there. I have not heard from him since.