Day By Day Dates

April 30 Thursday – Sam gave his “Sandwich Islands” lecture in Carson City as a school benefit [MTL 2: 213].

May – Sam’s hilarious article, “My Late Senatorial Secretaryship,” was printed in the Galaxy Magazine for May 1868 [Budd, “Collected” 1008].

May 1 Friday – Sam returned to Virginia City, where he began a letter to Mary Mason Fairbanks:

“My Dear Mother—I cannot go a-Maying today, because it is snowing so hard—& so I have been writing some newspaper letters…”

Sam left the letter unfinished until he returned to San Francisco [MTL 2: 211]. Sam spent a couple of days “to shake hands and swap yarns with his old friends” [MTL 2: 213].

May 3 Sunday – Sam left Virginia City for the trip over the Sierra Nevada, which, due to the late spring snows and railroad repairs, was one of train plus stagecoach for a 30-hour trip to San Francisco [MTL 2: 213n3-4].

May 4 Monday – Sam was in transit to San Francisco, by stage and by train. He spent the night in Sacramento [MTL 2: 215n8].

May 5 Tuesday – Sam departed Sacramento at 2 PM on the California Steam Navigation Company’s Capital, with his friend Edward A. Poole as captain. Sam arrived back in San Francisco and stayed at the Occidental Hotel again, and finished his letter of May 1 to Mary Mason Fairbanks.

May 12 Tuesday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to Mary Mason Fairbanks, including a photograph he had forgotten to include in his letter of May 5.

He also wrote to Frank Fuller about his success in lecturing, his plans to go east the first of July and the news that his book would be issued from the press early in December [MTL 2: 216].

May 17 Sunday – Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Fifty-one” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 296-301].

May 18-23 Saturday – Sam wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “Happy Memories of the Dental Chair” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxiv].

May 19 Tuesday – Sam’s fourth LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN, dated May 1 from Virginia City, Nevada ran in the Chicago Republican and included: “Bad Jokes,” “LITERARY DEBAUCH,” “HONOR TO WHOM, &C.,” “PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL,” “MAY DAY – A CONTRAST,” and:

AT SEA.

Special Correspondence of the Chicago Republican.

May 21 Thursday – Barton W. Stone Bowen died in Hannibal from a steamboat accident. Bart was a good friend of Sam’s and a fellow pilot; he befriended Sam and offered financial assistance at the time of Henry Clemens’ death. [MTL 4: 119n6].

May 28 Thursday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to Elisha Bliss about Bancroft & Co. Publishing handling book sales on the West Coast and in Japan and China.

“I shall have the MSS finished in twenty days & shall start east in the steamer of the 1 of July” [MTL 2: 217-8].

May 31 Sunday – Sam’s fifth LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN, dated May 2 from Virginia City ran in the Chicago Republican and included: “CURIOUS CHANGES,” “BRIEF MENTION OF A FRIEND,” “NOVEL ENTERTAINMENT,” “UP AMONG THE CLOUDS,” and “AMEN” [Schmidt].

June – Sam wrote a sketch unpublished until 2009: “I Rise to a Question of Privilege” [Who Is Mark Twain? xxiv].

June 7 Sunday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to his mother and family, advising them to keep the Tennessee Land if they had not yet sold it, since the new railroad would make it more valuable. He had washed his hands of trying to sell the land, and Orion made several trips there but failed to sell it [MTL 2: 219-20].

June 13 Saturday – Sam’s letter, “Important to Whom it May Concern” ran in the San Francisco News Letter and the California Advertiser [Camfield, bibliog.].

June 17 Wednesday – Sam wrote from the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco to Mary Mason Fairbanks. He had read a few of the scathing reviews of his “Pilgrim” speech by ministers and others.

June 18 Thursday – Sam’s article, “ANOTHER OLD CALIFORNIAN GONE” appeared in the San Francisco Daily Dramatic Chronicle [Fatout, MT Speaks 56-7].

June 23 Tuesday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to Elisha Bliss.

“The book is finished, & I think it will do. It will make more than 600 pages, but I shall reduce it at sea. I sail a week hence, & shall arrive in New York in the steamer Henry Chauncey, about July 22. I may tarry there a day or two at my former quarters (Westminster Hotel,) & then report at Hartford” [MTL 2: 232].

June, late – Sam renewed his friendship with Steve Gillis, now married and living on Bush Street. He also spent time with Bret Harte, editor of the newly founded Overland Monthly, a literary magazine. Harte was on the verge of fame for his own stories, “The Luck of Roaring Camp” appearing that year, and “Outcasts of Poker Flats” the next.

June 28 Sunday – The Daily Memphis Avalanche, p. 1, ran “Mark Twain on Female Suffrage.”

Mark Twain on Female Suffrage.

     “Mark Twain’ writes to his “Cousin Jennie” on the subject of “Female Suffrage,” as follows:

June 30 Tuesday – Sam dated advertising this day for the coming lecture—an elaborate handbill of protests for him not to speak, listing prominent citizens; his objections; and a final directive by the chief of police that he should go [Sanborn 397; MTL 2: 233n1].

July – Sam’s article “By Rail through France” ran in the July issue of the Overland Monthly [Camfield, bibliog.]. This was the first issue of the magazine with Bret Harte as editor. The publication was in tune with the pioneering spirit of excitement in California. Harte’s story, “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” appeared in the magazine’s second edition, propelling Harte to nationwide fame.

July 2 Thursday – Sam had planned on leaving June 30, but was enticed to one final lecture. He gave a lecture titled, “The Oldest of the Republics—Venice: Past and Present,” at the New Mercantile Library on Bush Street in San Francisco [Fatout, MT Speaking 25-6]. “As usual, the audience was large and fashionable, and was so enthusiastic, that afterward he felt ‘some inches taller’ ” [Sanborn 397].

July 3 Friday – Sam called at the steamship office to buy his ticket for July 6. The steamship company refused to let him pay, insisting that he be their guest, such was his notoriety and popularity in the region [Sanborn 397].