February 23 Monday – Sam attended the Firemen’s Ball at Topliffe’s Theater on North C Street in Virginia City [ET&S 1: 223]. The next day, Clement T. Rice (“The Unreliable”) of the Virginia Daily Union wrote:
“Mark Twain was at the Fireman’s ball last night dressed in a most ridiculous manner. He had on a linen coat, calf-skin vest, and a pair of white pants, the whole set off with a huge pair of Buffalo shoes and lemon-colored kids” [Marleau, “Some Early” 13].
February 24–March 31 Tuesday – “A Sunday in Carson” ran in the Enterprise:
February 25 Wednesday – Sam’s Local Column in the Enterprise included: “The Unreliable,” a continuing mock attack on his rival at the Virginia Union, Clement T. Rice, in answer to his article of Feb. 24 on Sam’s dress:
February 26 Thursday – Sam printed a mock obituary, which Fatout calls “round one” in the trumped-up feud between Sam and his rival, Clement T. Rice, named by Sam “The Unreliable.” (Earlier jabs at Rice had been made, however). It was reprinted in the Marysville Daily Appeal on Feb. 28.
REPORTORIAL
February 27 Friday – Dennis Driscoll (1823-1876), bookkeeper for the Enterprise, wrote Dan De Quille about the paper being shorthanded and needing him to return from Iowa, where he’d gone to see family. Driscoll wrote that “Barstow had left our employ,” Joe Goodman had gone to San Francisco to meet his mother; Denis McCarthy had gone off to San Francisco to get married and might not return for a month. “You see this leaves me alone. I am attending to business, with Charley Parker on the outside collecting. Biggs in Joe’s place editing and Sam Clemens localizing.
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].
March 1–12 Thursday – Sam’s Local Column in the Enterprise:
March 4 Wednesday – The Enterprise printed “City Marshal Perry” a Clemens spoof biography of John Van Buren (Jack) Perry, a Virginia City notable re-elected city marshal on Mar. 2 [ET&S 1: 233-8].
March 6 Friday – The Washoe Stock and Exchange Board was organized in Virginia City and Sam covered the dinner event for the Enterprise [ET&S 1: 239]
March 7 Saturday – Sam’s Enterprise article about the stock board dinner, “Champagne with the Board of Brokers” was another jab at The Unreliable [ET&S 1: 240].
March 20 Friday – partial Enterprise article attributed to Sam, title of this column remains unidentified:
March 31 Tuesday – The Enterprise item, “Captain Alpheus Smith,” is attributed to Sam [Fatout, MT in VC 137]. Fatout presents this article to reflect the “furor” made about the Reese River mining district, and as an object lesson that Sam did not “rush off to the diggings,” because he’d “had enough of that.”
April or May 1863 – Sometime during these two months an article titled, “For Lager” appeared in the Enterprise and is attributed to Sam [Schmidt].
April 3 Friday – Sam’s Local Column in the Enterprise: “A Distinguished Visitor,” “Clara Kopka,” “The Lois Ann mine,” “ Island Mill,” “Gould & Curry,” and “Minstrels.”
April 11–12 Sunday – Sam wrote from Virginia City to his mother, and sister Pamela Moffett.
My Dear Mother & Sister
It is very late at night, & I am writing in my room, which is not quite as large or as nice as the one I had at home. My board, washing & lodging cost me seventy-five dollars a month.
April 16 Thursday – Sam wrote a letter from Virginia City to his mother, of which a fragment survives.
…
April 16–18 Saturday – “Horrible Affair” was published in the Enterprise. Sam wrote that five Indians “had been smothered to death in a tunnel back of Gold Hill.” He included this account in a list of hoaxes some five years after [ET&S 1: 244-7].
April 17 Friday – The Enterprise ran Sam’s article “Latest from Washoe” about the Gold Hill discovery [MTL 1: 251-2n3]:
The recent discovery at Gold Hill has materially advanced the rates of the claims on the main range, and is really of great importance. The discovery consists of a newly developed ledge, of surprising richness, immediately in front of what has been supposed to be the front vein in that locality. Should the new ledge prove to be permanent and continuous, it will doubtless be claimed as a portion of the main Gold Hill possessions.
April 19–30 Thursday – Sam’s Local Column in the Enterprise contained “Electric Mill Machinery,” a short squib reporting a new “infernal” invention to “turn quartz mills” [ET&S 1: 413].
April 24 Friday – Sam was up to his old journalism tricks again as he recalled in the Enterprise the excitement of the past week and included a spoof of mining strikes:
May 1 Friday ca. – Sam and Clement Rice (“The Unreliable”) arrived in San Francisco by stagecoach, by way of Henness Pass [Sanborn 195]. This approximate date is confirmed by Joe Goodman’s letter of May 5 to Dan De Quille in Iowa. After pleading with Dan to return to the Enterprise by raising his pay to $40 per week plus a promise to “get the public to hold a donation party twice a year,” and even offering to send travel funds, Joe wrote:
May 3 Sunday – A column signed by “Mark Twain” but probably written by Joe Goodman ran in the Enterprise toasting Sam’s departure from Virginia City to San Francisco, his first visit there. “He has gone to display his ugly person and disgusting manners and wildcat on Montgomery Street. In all of which he will be assisted by his protégée, the Unreliable” [MTL 1: 253]. A. Hoffman claims these were Goodman’s words, and that Sam took off for San Francisco “about the first of May” [80]. (See May 1 entry.)
May 5 to August 10 Monday ca. – A photo of Sam with muttonchops is given this date range at MTP.
May 15 Friday – Sam’s sketch “Stories for Good Little Boys and Girls” ran in the Golden Era [Camfield, bibliog.].
May 16 Saturday – Sam wrote to the Territorial Enterprise, “Letter from Mark Twain.” The sketch anticipated the fictional “Mr. Brown” and “Mr. Twain” of his 1866 Sandwich Islands Letters to the Sacramento Union [MTL 1: 256n1; ET&S 1: 248-9].