Territorial Enterprise: Day By Day

February 22 Sunday – Sam left Carson City [ET&S 1: 221].

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.

February 27 Saturday – Adah Isaacs Menken (1835?-1868) arrived in Virginia City. In Sept. 1863 Sam saw her in one of her sixty San Francisco performances of Mazeppa, where she rode horseback in nothing but flesh-colored body-tights. Sam wasn’t impressed with her performances. Adah invited Sam to dinner in her hotel room with Dan De Quille and the Bohemian poet Ada Clare (Jane McElhinney, 1836?-1874). Menken’s current husband, her third, poet and dramatic critic Orpheus C. Kerr (Robert H. Newell 1836-1901), was not allowed in the room. The Jewish actress had also been married to John C.

February 28 Sunday – Sam’s recent Enterprise article “Concerning Notaries” was reprinted in the Golden Era as “Washoe Wit Mark Twain on the Rampage” [Walker 67; Camfield bibliog.].

February 29 Monday – In Virginia City, Sam wrote to J.T. Goodman & Co., asking them to pay Orion $150. This may have been money Sam owed Orion [MTL 1: 273].

February 3 Tuesday – The article “Letter from Carson City,” signed, “Yours, dreamily, Mark Twain” ran in the Enterprise. This is the first article so signed. In this piece Sam pokes fun at his rival, Clement T. Rice, the “Unreliable” [MTL 1: 246].

February 3 Wednesday – The Nevada Territorial Legislature adjourned to attend Jennie Clemens’ funeral at 10 AM [MTL 1: 383; Mack 278].

February 5 Thursday – Sam’s “Letter from Carson” ran in the Enterprise and included: Sturtevant & Curry wedding, a murder case, and mining companies, and “The Unreliable”:

February 5 Friday – Sam wrote “Winter’s New House,” published a week later in the Enterprise, along with a second article written this day “An Excellent School” [ET&S 1: 343].

February 6 Friday – Another “Letter from Carson” [Camfield, bibliog.].

February 6 Saturday – Sam wrote to the Territorial Enterprise describing the fierce competition for 72 positions of county notary created by the legislature. “There are seventeen hundred and forty-two applications for notaryships already on file in the Governor’s office.” Sam decided he might as well apply, too. The article, “Concerning Notaries,” appeared in the Enterprise on Feb. 9 and was reprinted in the Golden Era on the 28 [MTL 1: 278n9; Sanborn 224].

February 7 Sunday – The New York Mercury ran Sam’s article, “Doings in Nevada” [Powers, MT A Life 134; Camfield bibliog.]. Note: Fatout reports this as “For Sale or to Rent,” a spoof advertising used territorial officials rejected by the voters, and connects this publication to the help of Artemus Ward [MT in VC 131].

February 8 to 15 Monday – Sam and Clement T. Rice reported in “Legislative Proceedings” each day. Some pieces were signed, some not. See Smith, p.153-62 for details.

February 8 Sunday – Another “Letter from Carson,” headed “Thursday Morning,” (Feb. 5) was published in the Enterprise.
“The ways of the Unreliable are past finding out…I never saw such an awkward, ungainly lout in my life. He had on a pair of Jack Wilde’s pantaloons, and a swallow-tail coat…and they fitted him as neatly as an elephant’s hide would fit a poodle” [ET&S 1: 207-8].

February 9 Monday – “Isreal Putnam” (likely a pseudonym) wrote to Sam, referring to his new pen name.

February 9 Tuesday – Sam’s “Letter from Carson,” with “Concerning Notaries” ran in the Enterprise [Walker 67-70].

January 1 Thursday – “More Ghosts” ran in the Local Column of the Enterprise. The item spoofs through objection an article that appeared in the paper in the last week of Dec., 1862 about a “haunted house” on E Street in Virginia City: “Are we to be scared to death every time we venture into the street? May we be allowed to quietly go about our business, or are we to be assailed at every corner by fearful apparitions?” [ET&S 1: 177-8]. Also published:
NEW YEAR’S DAY

January 1 Friday – On New Year’s Day, Sam wrote in the Territorial Enterprise:

“Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath” [Fatout, MT Speaks 10-11].

Charles F. Browne (Artemus Ward) wrote from Austin, Nev. to Sam

My Dearest Love,—I arrived here yesterday a.m. at 2 o’clock. It is a wild, untamable place, but full of lion-hearted boys. I speak to-night. See small bills.

January 1–9 Friday – Sam’s article SULPHUR DEPOSIT appeared sometime between these dates in the Enterprise.

January 10 Saturday – Sam’s Enterprise Local Column: “Due Notice,” “New Court House,”
“Music,” and “The Sanitary Ball”:

January 11 Monday – “Letter from Mark Twain” (dated Jan. 10) ran in the Enterprise [Camfield bibliog.]. Sections: “Politics,” “Baggage,” “Young Gillespie,” “Legislature,” “House Warming,” “Warren Engine Co.,” “Religious,” “Squaires Trial,” “Marsh Children,” and “Artemus.”

ARTEMUS

I received a letter from Artemus Ward, to-day, dated “Austin, January 1.” It has been sloshing around between Virginia and Carson for awhile. I hope there is no impropriety in publishing extracts from a private letter – if there be, I ought not to copy the following paragraph of his: