Day By Day Dates

February 8–10 Saturday – Sam’s article “Remarkable Dream” is part of his San Francisco Letter dated Feb. 6 which ran in the Enterprise. The piece is another swipe at “Fitz Smythe.” Other items in the letter: “Ministerial Change,” “Personal,” and “Dogberry’s Lecture.” (Text not available for last two items) [ET&S 2: 353].

February 10 Saturday – Sam’s article, “Mark Twain Among the Spirits” was printed in the Californian [Reprinted from the Enterprise] [Schmidt].

February 11 Sunday – The Golden Era reprinted Sam’s earlier February Enterprise article, “Mark Twain a Committee Man,” A hilarious account of Sam “handling” a stage spiritualist [Walker 125].

February 12 Monday – Sam’s San Francisco Letter of this date ran later in February in the Enterprise. Sections: “Michael,” “Liberality of Michael,” “Liberality to His Heir,” The New Play,” and “Personal,” –all text unavailable. Also in the letter, in full:
THE FASHIONS

February 13 Tuesday – See February listing for items reprinted this day in the Golden Era.

February 15 Thursday – Sam’s San Francisco Letter of this date ran later in February in the Enterprise. Sections: “Funny,” “Montana,” “Literary,” “Personal,” and “Specie and Currency.” Only the first article text is available:

FUNNY

February 17 Saturday – Sam’s article, “An Open Letter to the American People” was published this date in the New York Weekly Review [MTL 1: 330 n5].

February 18 Sunday – The Golden Era printed three articles by Sam: “The Signal Corps,” “Spiritual Insanity,” and “Mysterious Newspaper Man” [Walker 129].

February 22 Thursday – Sam interviewed passengers upon return of the steamer Ajax, which began its maiden voyage on the San Francisco to Honolulu run on Jan. 13. Sam regretted not going. The Ajax was the same steamship that Sam would take in March. The earliest known “saloon version” of how Sam acquired the pen name “Mark Twain” appeared in the Nevada City, California Transcript [Cardwell 179]. (“Mark Twain” being a charge for two drinks.)

February 23 Friday – Sam wrote an account of the pioneer voyage of the Ajax for the Enterprise.

February 24 Saturday – Sam traveled to Sacramento [MTL 1: 334n1].

February 25 Sunday – Sam wrote his daily Enterprise letter from Sacramento. It ran later that month. He’d arrived there to call on the editors of the Sacramento Union. Sam knew them and wanted to discuss becoming their special correspondent for a couple of months.
LETTER FROM SACRAMENTO [dated February 25, 1866].

February 25–28 Wednesday – Sam’s San Francisco Letter dated Feb. 23 ran in the Enterprise:
Sections: “Voyage of the Ajax,” “Pleasing Incident,” “Off for the Snow Belt,” “After Them,” “Theatrical,” and “A New Biography of Washington” [Schmidt].

February 26 Monday – This is most likely the day Sam and the editors of the Union agreed he should go to the Sandwich Islands. The exact agreement with the editors is unknown, but it’s clear Sam was to be paid for each letter from the islands. Sam had told his old school chum, Will Bowen, that he was willing to go anywhere the editors sent him, but since he’d missed out on two trips to the Sandwich Islands, it’s likely Sam suggested or offered that destination [Sanborn 273-4].

February 27–March 2 Friday – Sam booked passage to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) sometime after returning to San Francisco.

March 3 Saturday – Sam’s article, “A New Biography of George Washington,” was printed in the Californian [reprinted from the Territorial Enterprise] [Schmidt].

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.)

March 4 Sunday – The Golden Era printed two articles by Sam: “A New Wildcat Religion,” and “Biographical Sketch of George Washington” [Walker 106].

March 5 Monday – Sam wrote a short letter from San Francisco to his mother, Jane Clemens and sister Pamela:
I start to the Sandwich Islands day after to-morrow…I am to remain there a month & ransack the islands, the great cataracts & the volcanoes completely, & write twenty or thirty letters to the Sacramento Union—for which they pay me as much money as I would get if I staid at home [MTL 1: 333].

March 7 Wednesday – Sam left for the Sandwich Islands aboard the steamer Ajax. The ship left port at four o’clock in the afternoon on a pleasant breezy day. Passage took ten days, 19 ½ hours [Frear 5].
Sam’s friends had given him letters of introduction to important persons on the island, including the King. They also gave him a case of wine, several boxes of cigars, and a “small assortment of medicinal liquors and brandy” [Sanborn 275-6; MTL 1: 334n1]. From Sam’s notebook:

March 8 Thursday – From Sam’s notebook:
“Strong gale all night—ship rolled heavily—heavy sea on this evening—& black sky overhead. Nearly everybody sick abed yet” [MTNJ 1: 112].

March 9 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:

March 9–17 Saturday – The weather was stormy for three days. While aboard the Ajax, Sam jotted in his notebooks what information about the islands he gained from talk with passengers who lived there. He recorded anecdotes, bits of conversation, regional dialect, and occupational vernacular, such as the euchre game he watched between three whaling captains. From his notes he wrote the first letter to the Union, in which he included himself in the euchre contest. Sam would write 25 letters for the Union on this trip. Sam again used his alter ego in these letters, “Mr.

March 10 Saturday – From Sam’s notebook:

March 11 Sunday – Sam made several brief notebook entries on situations and customs of Hawaii the crew and passengers told him about. “…sea as smooth as a river. Nearly everybody out to breakfast this morning—not more than ½ dozen sick now” [MTNJ 1: 113].
Frear writes of Twain’s preparations during the voyage: