Day By Day Dates

October 15 Monday – Sam and Denis McCarthy traveled by riverboat to Marysville, California (named for Mary Murphy, a survivor of the Donner Party). There, Sam gave the lecture “Sandwich Islands” at Maguire’s New Theatre [Sanborn 299].

October 17 Wednesday – Sam’s article dated “Sept. 24, San Francisco, An Epistle from Mark Twain THE QUEEN’S ARRIVAL / ALPHABET WARREN / MISC.” ran in the Daily Hawaiian Herald [Schmidt; Camfield bibliog.].

October 20 Saturday – Sam and McCarthy traveled by stage through gold boomtowns, Timbuctoo, Smartsville, and Rough and Ready (in modern days nearly empty). Sam gave the lecture “Sandwich Islands” in Hamilton Hall, Grass Valley, California. The Grass Valley Daily Union reported:

October 23 Tuesday – Sam gave the lecture “Sandwich Islands,” in the Nevada Theatre in Nevada City, California, a short distance from Grass Valley. Sam stayed at the National Exchange Hotel. The local newspaper Transcript wrote: “Mark Twain” as a lecturer is far superior to “Artemus Ward” or any of that class….We bespeak for him large audiences wherever he goes [Sanborn 300].

October 24 Wednesday – Sam and McCarthy rode horseback to the old mining camp of Red Dog, California and gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at the Odd Fellows Hall.

October 25 Thursday – Sam’s 24 th letter to the Union dated “Kilauea, June 1866: A NOTABLE DISCOVERY” ran in the Union:
FREE-AND-EASY FASHIONS OF NATIVE WOMEN

October 26 Friday – Sam and McCarthy stopped to see Meadow Lake City, also known as Summit City, Ca., the highest of the gold mining districts at 7,100 feet and the place where Orion Clemens had briefly tried a legal office. They arrived at 9 PM [Schmidt: article from S.F. Bulletin, ran Dec. 6].

October 27 Saturday – Sam and McCarthy arrived back at Virginia City about ten p.m.

October 29 Monday – Sam wrote from Virginia City to Robert M. Howland, an old friend from his Nevada mining days, asking if Carson City would turn out to hear Sam lecture. Sam was unsure of the reception he would get there, due to the Sanitary Ball miscegenation prank [MTL 1: 362].
Sam also wrote to Henry R. Mighels to arrange a hall for his lecture:

October 30 Tuesday – The Territorial Enterprise announced that Sam would perform in Virginia City the following night. “We expect to see the very mountains shake with a tempest of applause” [MTL 5: 682n].

October 31 Wednesday – Sam gave one performance in Virginia City—the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Maguire’s Opera House. It was a glorious homecoming. The Enterprise wrote, “an immense success” [Sanborn 302]. Sam met with old friends, Dan De Quille, Joe Goodman and Steve Gillis. Gillis urged Sam to speak again at the Opera House, but Sam did not want to repeat himself in any one town. Steven hatched a plot to pull a fake robbery of Sam in Gold Hill as a way of getting Sam to lecture again on a new topic [303].

November 1 Thursday – Sam sent a telegraph to Abraham V.Z. Curry (1815-1873), John Neely Johnson (1825-1872), Robert M. Howland and others to confirm he would be in Carson City the next day to speak there on Saturday evening. Howland had sent Sam a letter dated Oct. 30 with over 100 signatures of prominent Carson City citizens who wanted to hear Sam’s “Sandwich Islands” lecture. The list included Henry Goode Blasdel (1825-1900), Governor of Nevada. Sam wrote to him, agreeing to speak on the stage of the Carson Theatre and:

November 2 Friday ca. – On or about this day Sam wrote from Virginia City to Catherine C. (Kate) Lampton and Annie E. and Samuel E. Moffett. Kate was Sam’s first cousin; Annie and Sammy were Pamela Moffett’s children, Sam’s niece and nephew. Teasing Annie again about the “bullrushers” story, Sam asked, How is old Moses that was rescued from the bulrushes & keeps a second-hand clothing-store in Market Street? Dear Sammy—Keep up your lick & you will become a great minister of the gospel some day, & then I shall be satisfied.

November 2 Friday ca.– On or about this day Sam wrote from Virginia City to Catherine C. (Kate) Lampton and Annie E. and Samuel E. Moffett. Kate was Sam’s first cousin; Annie and Sammy were Pamela Moffett’s children, Sam’s niece and nephew. Teasing Annie again about the “bullrushers” story, Sam asked,

November 3 Saturday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Carson Theatre in Carson City.

November 7 Wednesday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Washoe City, Nevada sometime between these dates [MTL 1: 366n3; MTPO “Mark Twain on the Platform”]. “Card from Mark Twain” dated Nov. 1 ran in the Enterprise [Camfield bibliog.].

November 8 Thursday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Dayton, Nevada, probably at the Odeon Hall Saloon, where Sam sometimes drank and played billiards. He arrived in Virginia City “about 12 in the evening…from Dayton” [Clark 903].

November 9 Friday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Silver City, Nevada.

November 10 Saturday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at the Gold Hill Theatre, Gold Hill, Nevada. After the lecture Sam and Denis McCarthy were the victims of a prank robbery on the one-mile highway between Gold Hill and Virginia City called “the divide.” An all-night farewell party was promised in Virginia City. Sam and McCarthy were on foot. The “robbers” took about $125 in coin, and a $300 gold watch that Sam highly prized, a present to him by A.S. “Sandy” Baldwin and Theodore Winters [Clark 903].

November 11 Sunday – Sam’s CARD TO THE HIGHWAYMEN ran in the Enterprise:

November 12 Monday – At noon, Sam and Denis McCarthy left Virginia City by the Pioneer Stage via Donner Lake route for San Francisco. Just as the stage was leaving from in front of the Wells Fargo office, the chief of police George Birdsall handed Sam a package containing his watch, money, two jackknives, corkscrew, toothpick, three lead pencils, and the masks worn by the “robbers.” According to this account, Sam refused to shake hands with Birdsall and ordered the stage driver to go on. McCarthy was a likely accomplice to the joke [Clark 903-4].

November 13 Tuesday – Sam arrived back in San Francisco at night [MTL 1: 366n4].

November 16 Friday – In front of 1,500 people in Platt’s Hall, San Francisco, California, Sam gave a new lecture based on the ride west with Orion. Sam repeated the same tired joke about Horace Greeley (1811-1872) and Hank Monk (1832?-1883) on a stagecoach until the house’s silence crumbled into waves of laughter. Still, this second San Francisco lecture was not as well received as the first on Oct. 2 [Lorch 44]. Lorch writes:

November 17 Saturday – Sam’s sketch “The Story of a Scriptural Panoramist” ran in the Californian. It was later included in Sketches, New and Old (1875) [Camfield bibliog.]. Scharnhorst writs that the receipts from Sam’s lecture of Nov. 16 were garnished to “satisfy part of the judgment” from posting bond for “a friend who then fled to Nevada” two years before (Steve Gillis) [“Mark Twain’s Imbroglio with the San Francisco Police” American Literature (Dec 1990) p.691]. Sanborn claims there “are no facts to support” the story of Sam posting a bond for Gillis [255].

November 21 Wednesday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Armory Hall, San Jose, California. This is the first lecture where Sam offered to demonstrate cannibalism as practiced in the Sandwich Islands, asking for a mother to bring her child to the platform. This device was successful and yielded much laughter if also a few criticisms now and then from the press for being in bad taste [Lorch 47].

The Washoe Evening Slope ran a brief item that declared the proceeds of Sam’s second lecture in San Francisco had been attached for the benefit of one of his creditors [Lorch 46].