California Lectures: 1866 - Day By Day

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October 2 Tuesday – Sam’s first stage appearance took place at the Academy of Music on Pine Street in San Francisco, a new hall owned by Tom Maguire, who suggested Sam try to make his fortune by entering the lecture field and offering his experiences in the Sandwich Islands. He’d offered the hall to Sam at half price, 50 dollars, in exchange for half the profits. Sam agreed and spent 150 dollars on advertising. He had posters made up announcing the Honolulu Correspondent for the Sacramento Union, “Mark Twain,” would be speaking. “Doors open at 7 o’clock.

October 3 Wednesday – Newspaper reviews to Sam’s talk were very positive, as witnessed by this excerpt from the San Francisco Evening-Bulletin of Oct. 3:

October 6 Saturday – Sam’s article, MARK TWAIN ON ETIQUETTE, was reprinted in the Daily Hawaiian Herald. (See May 22 entry for excerpt).

October 11 to November 27 Tuesday – Sam and Denis McCarthy, former part-owner of the Territorial Enterprise, (who Sam now labeled “The Orphan,” quickly organized a lecture tour in California and Nevada. (Lorch gives strong reasoning that the subsequent lecture tour was most likely organized well before this Oct. 2 debut [35-6]). The lecture, titled “Sandwich Islands” made sixteen engagements between these dates at locations where Sam was well known [Sanborn 298-9]. Dates in Silver City, Dayton, and Washoe were canceled.

October 15 Monday – Sam and Denis McCarthy traveled by riverboat to Marysville, California (named for Mary Murphy, a survivor of the Donner Party). There, Sam gave the lecture “Sandwich Islands” at Maguire’s New Theatre [Sanborn 299].

October 17 Wednesday – Sam’s article dated “Sept. 24, San Francisco, An Epistle from Mark Twain THE QUEEN’S ARRIVAL / ALPHABET WARREN / MISC.” ran in the Daily Hawaiian Herald [Schmidt; Camfield bibliog.].

October 20 Saturday – Sam and McCarthy traveled by stage through gold boomtowns, Timbuctoo, Smartsville, and Rough and Ready (in modern days nearly empty). Sam gave the lecture “Sandwich Islands” in Hamilton Hall, Grass Valley, California. The Grass Valley Daily Union reported:

October 23 Tuesday – Sam gave the lecture “Sandwich Islands,” in the Nevada Theatre in Nevada City, California, a short distance from Grass Valley. Sam stayed at the National Exchange Hotel. The local newspaper Transcript wrote: “Mark Twain” as a lecturer is far superior to “Artemus Ward” or any of that class….We bespeak for him large audiences wherever he goes [Sanborn 300].

October 24 Wednesday – Sam and McCarthy rode horseback to the old mining camp of Red Dog, California and gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at the Odd Fellows Hall.

October 25 Thursday – Sam’s 24 th letter to the Union dated “Kilauea, June 1866: A NOTABLE DISCOVERY” ran in the Union:
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