San Francisco in 1864: Day By Day

December 3 Saturday – Sam’s story “Lucretia Smith’s Soldier” was first published in the San Francisco Californian. The story was instantly popular, reprinted by newspapers in California and New York, and was later included with the Jumping Frog collection [Wilson 193; ET&S 2: 125].

December 4 Sunday – Sam left San Francisco with James Gillis for Jackass Hill in Tuolumne County, Ca., some one hundred miles east of San Francisco. They boarded a San Joaquin steamer for Stockton, and from there went on by stagecoach to “that serene and reposeful and dreamy and delicious sylvan paradise” (Jackass gulch) [Sanborn 256]. Brother Billy Gillis, then 23, waited there for them. Steve Gillis, finding no way to reconcile with Emeline Russ, returned to Virginia City.

July 1 Friday – The following five local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “The Old Thing,” “House at Large,” “School Children’s Rehearsal,” “Police Commissioners,” and “More Steamship Suits Brewing” [Branch, C of Call 289]

July 10 Sunday – The following two local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Green-back Theft,” and “The Bigamist” [Branch, C of Call 290].

July 12 Tuesday – The following five local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Police Court Testimony,” “United States Circuit Court,” “Astounding Cheek,” “Chinese Slaves,” and “The Bigamy Case” [Branch, C of Call 290].

July 13 Wednesday – The following four local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Its Opponents,” “Insane,” “New Board Rooms,” and “Board of Education” [Branch, C of Call 290].

July 14 Thursday – The following five local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Calaboose Theatricals,” “Not Insane,” “A Wife-Smasher in Limbo,” “Runaway,” and “Inspection of Fortifications” [Branch, C of Call 290].

July 15 Friday – Sam wrote to William Wright (Dan De Quille) from the Occidental Hotel, San Francisco. He asked Dan to get George Dawson to send Sam money owed. He then related hilarious impressions of himself and Steve by the landlady at the Occidental, about a visitor who’d gone there to find the pair, but they’d moved on. Sam noted that a famous actor had left for the Sandwich Islands, which may have continued to pull Sam’s imagination [MTL 1: 304]. The article “Disposed of” in the Call is attributed to Sam [Branch, C of Call 290].

July 16 Saturday – The following five local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “The ‘Coming of Man’ Has arrived,” “Moses in the Bulrushes Again,” “A Gross Outrage,” “The Comanche,” and “Remarkable Clock” [Branch, C of Call 290-1].

July 17 Sunday – The following six local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Independent Candidate for Stockton,” “More Cigar Smoking,” “The County Prison,” “Progress of the Camanche—the Libel,” “Juvenile Criminals,” and “Two Infernally Accommodating” [Branch, C of Call 291].

July 19 Tuesday – The following five local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Assault,” “ Real del Monte,” “Camanche Matters,” “Police Court,” and “State Prisoners” [Branch, C of Call 291].

July 2 Saturday – The following four local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Policeman Suspended,” “The Swindle Case,” “Chance for the Hotels,” and “Stole a Shirt” [Branch, C of Call 289].

July 20 Wednesday – The following four local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “A Stage Robber Amongst Us,” “The Poetic Rabies,” “Police Court,” and “Police Appelants” [Branch, C of Call 291].

July 21 Thursday – The following six local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Police Applicants,” “Amazonian Pastimes,” “More Young Thieves,” “Attempted Mayhem,” and “Detective Rose Again” [Branch, C of Call 291].

July 22 Friday – The following eight local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam:
“The Boss Earthquake,” “The Police Court Besieged,” “Good Effects of a High Tariff,” “Rough on Keating,” “A Scene at the Police Court—The Hostility of Color,” “First Regiment Election,” “Arrest of a Secesh Bishop,” and “Astonishing Freak of Nature” [Branch, C of Call 291].

July 23 Saturday – The following six local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Demoralizing Young Girls,” “Rape,” “The Nose-Biter,” “Oh! That Mine Enemy Would Make a Speech!,” “Discharged,” and “False Pretenses” [Branch, C of Call 291].

July 24 Sunday – The following five local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Startling!—The Latest General Order,” “Obscene-Picture Dealers,” “A Merited Penalty,” “The ‘Nina Tilden’,” and “Police Court Doings” [Branch, C of Call 291].

July 26 Tuesday – The following three local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Vending Obscene Pictures,” “Lewd Merchandise,” and “ Concerning Hackmen” [Branch, C of Call 292].

July 27 Wednesday – The following three local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Family Jar,” “Bail Forfeited,” and “Police Court” [Branch, C of Call 292].

July 28 Thursday – The following two local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Munificent Donation,” and “Sliding Scale of Assault and Battery” [Branch, C of Call 292].

July 29 Friday – The following two local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Obscene Information,” and “On a Pleasure Trip” [Branch, C of Call 292].

July 3 Sunday – Sam’s article “Early Rising, As Regards Excursions to the Cliff House” was published in the Golden Era. The piece is “manifestly an attempt to elaborate the experience of his own recent trip into a humorous, essentially literary sketch” [Walker 83; ET&S 2: 22].
The following five local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “The Secesh Highwaymen,” “Theatrical Record. City,” “Nabbed,” “Young Thieves,” and “Those Thieves” [Branch, C of Call 289-90].

July 30 Saturday – The following ten local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam:
“Trot Her Along,” “More Sanitary Molasses,” “Washoe Mining Festivals,” “ Mrs. O’Farrell,” “The Sinking Ship Deserted,” “Caving In,” “ “Emancipation Celebration,” “End of the Rape Case,” “Police Court,” and “After Sundries” [Branch, C of Call 292].

July 31 Sunday – The following ten local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam:
“The Camanche,” “Disgusted and Gone,” “Burglary,” “Custom House Resignations,” “Dr. Bellows Safe,” “Go to the Sea-Side,” “Another Lazarus,” “County Jail Addition,” “One Day for Reflection,” and “Police Court” [Branch, C of Call 292].

July 4 Monday – Sam’s “Original Novelette,” an imitation of John Phoenix in a form popularized by Bret Harte and Charles Webb, was published in the Call [Wilson 195; ET&S 2: 31].
The following three local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam:
“A Sheep-Stealer Caught,” “Original Novelette,” and “An ‘Altagraph’,” [Branch, C of Call 290].
Dan De Quille paid $40 to Daggett & Myers toward rent owed with Sam [Mack 246].