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

March or April – The Enterprise printed Sam’s humorous “Examination of Teachers”:

Under the head of ‘Object Teaching,’ we found some ten questions…We barely glanced at the list… when we felt great beads of perspiration starting out of our brow—our massive intellect oozing out. Happening to read a question like this, ‘Name four of the faculties of children that are earliest developed,’ we at once became anxious to get out of the room [ET&S 1: 232].

February 19 Thursday – “Ye Sentimental Law Student,” dated Feb. 14 ran in the Enterprise. Joe Goodman claimed this was the first use of the signature “Mark Twain,” so he may not have known about the Feb. 3 letter. The article is a parody of poetic excess in description of what was not viewable even from the top of the mountains around Virginia City—all laid at the feet of the “Unreliable” [ET&S 1: 215-9]. Sam’s Local Column included: “LaPlata Ore Company,” “Concert,” and:

February 12 or 22 Sunday – Sam’s second visit to the Spanish Mine was written up and published in the Enterprise as “The Spanish” [ET&S 1: 160-1]. Sam threw in a verbal poke at his Union rival: “…and by way of driving the proposition into heads like the Unreliable’s, which is filled with oysters instead of brains…” [ET&S 1: 167].

January 15 Thursday – Sam’s article “A Big Thing in Washoe City” ran about this day in the Enterprise, and two days later in the Placer Weekly Courier [Camfield, bibliog.].

December 28 Sunday – Sam’s article, “The Illustrious Departed,” ran in the Enterprise:

December 19 Friday – By legislative act, Sam was made recording secretary of the Washoe Agricultural, Mining and Mechanical Society. The position paid $300 per year. He served until the completion of the society’s fair in Oct. 1863 [MTL 1: 266].

April 2 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Carson City to his mother about Orion, ladies back home, trying to rent a better office for Orion, the death of an acquaintance at Fort Donelson, and other goings on.

My Dear Mother:

October 4 Saturday – The hoax known as “The Petrified Man” ran in the Enterprise, and was reprinted by many newspapers in the West—some swallowed it whole, and some, after a few days, saw the joke [Fatout, MT Speaks 4; Mack 213].

PETRIFIED MAN

September 16 Tuesday – Sam’s article, “ANOTHER INNOCENT MAN KILLED,” appeared in the Territorial Enterprise. Since the shooting was on Sunday and the paper did not print on Mondays, Marleau thinks this Tuesday was “likely the first day Samuel L. Clemens reported for the Territorial Enterprise” [“Some Early” 12].