Territorial Enterprise: Day By Day

December 23 Tuesday – Sam’s article dated Dec. 23 ran in the Enterprise sometime later in the month. It was republished in the Placer Weekly Courier of Forest Hill, Placer County on Jan. 17, 1863.
A BIG THING IN WASHOE CITY OR THE GRAND BULL DRIVERS’ CONVENTION
Carson, Midnight December 23d. Eds., Enterprise:

December 24 and 25 Friday – Christmas – Artemus Ward hung around the Enterprise office during his stay in town. Sam and Dan De Quille showed Ward around during his visit. Joe Goodman described the raucous evening that unfolded at Chaumond’s after Ward’s lecture at Silver City, where Ward proposed his well-known toast, “ I give you Upper Canada.” Why? “Because I don’t want it myself” [Fatout, MT in VC 128]:

December 25–27 Sunday – Sam’s Local Column in the Enterprise: “A Christmas Gift.” Someone sent Sam a “naked, porcelain doll baby” [ET&S 1: 420]. Note: Did Ward send the doll?

December 27 Saturday – A. J. Simmons, later speaker of the house in the Nevada legislature, sold Sam ten feet in the Butte ledge, Tehema Mining Company for $1,000, and ten feet in the Kentucky ledge, Union Tunnel Company, both in Santa Clara district of Humboldt County [MTL 1: 278 n8]. Dan De Quille left Virginia City by overland stagecoach as planned for a nine-month visit to his home in Iowa. Benson writes that the expected absence of De Quille was one reason Barstow offered Sam a position [72]. It was feared by some that Dan would not return (see May 1, 1863 entry and the following Dec.

December 28 Sunday – Sam’s article, “The Illustrious Departed,” ran in the Enterprise:

December 28 Monday – The Virginia City Evening Bulletin quoted Sam’s article in the Enterprise: “Report of Artemus Ward’s Lecture in Virginia City.” The Enterprise article probably ran a day or two before Dec. 28:

December 29 Tuesday – Artemus Ward and his manager left Virginia in a mud wagon for Austin, 180 miles away. Fatout reports on the farewell: “Faithful companions gathered to see them off and to bestow going-away presents: a demijohn of whiskey, feet in a mine somewhere behind Mount Davidson, a pouch of tobacco, a bowie knife guaranteed to have killed two men. Mark Twain presented a copy of the Enterprise, Dan De Quille a sackful of hardboiled eggs” [MT in VC 134]. Fatout also comments on Ward’s influence on Sam, something that has been widely written of:

December 30 Tuesday – Sam’s Local Column was published in the Enterprise: “Board of Education,” “Blown Down,” “At Home,” “The School,” “Sad Accident,” “Thrilling Romance,” “Fire Almost,” “Private Party,” and “Our Stock Remarks”:
Owing to the fact that our stock reporter attended a wedding last evening, our report of transactions in that branch of robbery and speculation is not quite as complete and satisfactory as usual this morning [ET&S 1: 175-6].

December 30 Wednesday – Sam went to Carson City. His brother Orion was hopeful of a candidacy for secretary of state. Sam’s article, “The Bolters in Convention” was published in the Enterprise [Smith 112-18] and an unsigned article, “A Gorgeous Swindle,” the style of which points decidedly to Sam, and includes a parody of Sir Walter Scott [Smith 118-21; Gribben 617].

December 31 Thursday – Sam reported on the Union party convention to select candidates for Nevada’s first state election, scheduled for Jan.19, 1864. Joe Goodman, Sam’s editor, failed to win the nomination for state printer. Orion did win the nomination for secretary of state [MTL 1: 266].

December 5 Friday – One of Sam’s weekly letters, “Letter from Carson City” was dated this day and printed sometime in December in the Enterprise [Smith 35]. The letter included: “Alford vs. Dewing,” “Internal Improvements,” and “Williams Map.” Sam was the “Committee” in the first extant weekly letter:

REPORT ON WILLIAMS MAP

Your committee, consisting of a solitary but very competent individual, to whom was referred Col. Williams’ road from a certain point to another place, would beg most respectfully to report:

Your committee has had under consideration said map.

December 6 Sunday – Sam’s article “A Tide of Eloquence” was reprinted in the Golden Era [Walker 66]. It was printed in the Enterprise sometime in November [Camfield bibliog.].

December 8 Tuesday – Another “Letter from Mark Twain,” from Carson City, dated (Dec. 5) ran in the Enterprise. Sections: “Church in Carson,” “Questions of Privilege,” “Mr. Stern’s Speech” [Smith 92-5]. Krause gives all of “Mr. Stern’s Speech” parody [58] and discusses allusions [59-60].

Fall – Benson writes: “Ingomar, the Barbarian,” was presented in the opera house in the autumn of 1863. Mark Twain’s connection with this play proved of more than usual significance, because his critique was copied in the East, and we have the first instance of Eastern periodicals printing the Western writings of Mark Twain…. In this Ingomar review, Mark Twain shows a breaking away from the cruder humor that was in evidence in earlier burlesque writings. Gradually he came to depend more and more on cleverness rather than coarseness.

February 1 Monday – Orion and Mollie Clemens’ only daughter and niece of Sam’s, Jennie, died of cerebrospinal meningitis (“spotted fever.”) [MTL 1: 383].

Sam’s article “Satirical Account of Bill Stewart’s Party” ran in the Enterprise [Camfield bibliog.].

February 12 or 22 Sunday – Sam’s second visit to the Spanish Mine was written up and published in the Enterprise as “The Spanish” [ET&S 1: 160-1]. Sam threw in a verbal poke at his Union rival: “…and by way of driving the proposition into heads like the Unreliable’s, which is filled with oysters instead of brains…” [ET&S 1: 167].

February 12 Friday – Sam’s article, dated Feb. 5, “Winter’s New House,” ran in the Enterprise. It described the Carson City home of Theodore Winters, who had struck it rich in the Ophir vein and became a principal stockholder in the Spanish Mine. Also in the Enterprise was “An Excellent School” [ET&S 1: 339].

February 13 Saturday – “Letter from Mark Twain,” Carson City, was published in the Enterprise. The weekly letter, “The Carson Undertaker,” was an attack on the Carson Independent [Smith 159].

February 16 Monday – Sam wrote from Virginia City to his mother, Jane Clemens, and sister Pamela Moffett.

My Dr Mother & Sister:

February 16 Tuesday – “The Removal of the Capital,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Enterprise. [Smith 162]. Note: see also Aug. 17, 1869.

February 17–22 Sunday – “Silver Bars—How Assayed,” ran in the Enterprise. Branch calls this sketch “a good example of Clemens’ capacity to assimilate technical information to his humorous vision, transforming it yet also presenting the facts in a reasonably intelligent way” [ET&S 1: 210].

February 17–26 Thursday – Sam’s item in the Enterprise Local Column:

February 18 Wednesday – Sam assigned a “special power of attorney” over his mining interests to Daniel H. Twing [MTL 1: 237n2].

February 19 Thursday – “Ye Sentimental Law Student,” dated Feb. 14 ran in the Enterprise. Joe Goodman claimed this was the first use of the signature “Mark Twain,” so he may not have known about the Feb. 3 letter. The article is a parody of poetic excess in description of what was not viewable even from the top of the mountains around Virginia City—all laid at the feet of the “Unreliable” [ET&S 1: 215-9]. Sam’s Local Column included: “LaPlata Ore Company,” “Concert,” and:

February 21 Sunday – Sam’s sketch “Those Blasted Children,” (written on Jan. 9 and completed during a long night session lasting until 7 AM on Jan. 10) was published in the New York Sunday Mercury [ET&S 1: 348]. Sam’s made-up letter to “Mark Twain” from “Zeb. Leavenworth” contained a “sovereign remedy” for stammering children—sawing off the child’s underjaw. Zeb and Beck Jolly had been Sam’s shipmates on the John J. Roe [MTL 1: 271-2n2].