March 3? Saturday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to Billy Gillis (William R. Gillis, who paraphrased this letter from Sam later), telling him that he was leaving in a “short time for Sandwich Islands in company with a party of U.S. surveyors, a special correspondent of the Alta California” [MTL 1: 332]. (Sam had made a deal with the Sacramento Union, not the Alta.)
Mining and Tall Tales, Angels Camp – Jumping Frog
Literary Celebrity – Pistol to the Head
November 19 Saturday – Sam’s article, “A Full and Reliable Account of the Extraordinary Meteoric Shower of Last Saturday Night,” was published in the Californian [ET&S 2: 116].
November 19 or 21 Monday – Sam’s article, “The Pioneers’ Ball,” first ran in the Enterprise [Budd, “Collected” 1005].
Third Territorial Legislature – Jennie Clemens Dead
Miscegenation Firestorm – “Poltroon and a Puppy”
San Francisco City Beat for the Morning Call – Jackass Hill
Busy Reporter & Local Editor – “Mark Twain” & “Unreliable”
Bohemian of the Sagebrush – Lingering in S.F. – Burned out Sam – Mineral Baths
Bloody Massacre – Constitutional Convention – Third House – Artemus
1863 or 1864 – An article (title lost) describing the clergymen in Virginia City appeared in the Enterprise [Schmidt].
1862 or 1863 – 16 th of unidentified month – Enterprise item by Sam. No title.
November to December – Sam neglected his letter writing for this period and continued to work as a reporter for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise.
August, late – Sam arrived at the Virginia City Enterprise, a “small rickety frame building at the corner of A Street and Sutton Avenue,” [Fatout, MT in VC 11] (later a large brick building on C Street) to take the job. According to Paine, Sam claimed he walked the 130 miles from Aurora and arrived in the afternoon of a “hot, dusty August day” and drawled to Denis E. McCarthy (1840-1885) one of the owners:
Mining Excursions, More Feet, Backbreaking Labor – Esmeralda – Aurora
Josh Letters Yielded Offer –Territorial Enterprise Reporter
Goodman, McCarthy, De Quille &The Boys – Petrified Man Hoax
Covering the Territorial Legislature
December 22 Sunday ca. – In a blinding snowstorm, Sam’s party finally reached Unionville, Humboldt Mining District. Captain Hugo Pfersdorff laid out the town earlier in the year [Mack 129]. Sam’s letter to his mother of Jan. 30, 1862 claims this trip took eleven days [MTL 1: 149].
December 22–31 Tuesday – From Sam’s Jan. 30, 1862 letter to his mother, we read that “Billy [Clagett] put up his shingle as Notary Public, and Gus [Oliver] put up his as Probate Judge” [MTL 1: 150]. Sam would not stay long.