• October 29, 1866

    Submitted by scott on

    October 29 Monday – Sam wrote from Virginia City to Robert M. Howland, an old friend from his
    Nevada mining days, asking if Carson City would turn out to hear Sam lecture. Sam was unsure of
    the reception he would get there, due to the Sanitary Ball miscegenation prank [MTL 1: 362].
    Sam also wrote to Henry R. Mighels to arrange a hall for his lecture:
    Friend Mighels—I am trying to get the theatre for a lecture Wednesday night (day after tomorrow) &
    if I succeed, I shall preach in Gold Hill Thursday, Silver City Friday perhaps, & Carson Saturday if

  • October 30, 1866

    Submitted by scott on

    October 30 Tuesday – The Territorial Enterprise announced that Sam would perform in Virginia
    City the following night. “We expect to see the very mountains shake with a tempest of applause”
    [MTL 5: 682n].

  • October 31, 1866

    Submitted by scott on

    October 31 Wednesday – Sam gave one performance in Virginia City—the “Sandwich Islands”
    lecture at Maguire’s Opera House. It was a glorious homecoming. The Enterprise wrote, “an
    immense success” [Sanborn 302]. Sam met with old friends, Dan De Quille, Joe Goodman and Steve
    Gillis. Gillis urged Sam to speak again at the Opera House, but Sam did not want to repeat himself in
    any one town. Steven hatched a plot to pull a fake robbery of Sam in Gold Hill as a way of getting
    Sam to lecture again on a new topic [303].

  • November 1, 1866

    Submitted by scott on

    November 1 Thursday – Sam sent a telegraph to Abraham V.Z. Curry (1815-1873), John Neely
    Johnson (1825-1872), Robert M. Howland and others to confirm he would be in Carson City the
    next day to speak there on Saturday evening. Howland had sent Sam a letter dated Oct. 30 with over
    100 signatures of prominent Carson City citizens who wanted to hear Sam’s “Sandwich Islands”
    lecture. The list included Henry Goode Blasdel (1825-1900), Governor of Nevada. Sam wrote to him,
    agreeing to speak on the stage of the Carson Theatre and:

  • November 2, 1866

    Submitted by scott on

    November 2 Friday ca. – On or about this day Sam wrote from Virginia City to Catherine C.
    (Kate) Lampton and Annie E. and Samuel E. Moffett. Kate was Sam’s first cousin; Annie and
    Sammy were Pamela Moffett’s children, Sam’s niece and nephew. Teasing Annie again about the
    “bullrushers” story, Sam asked,
    How is old Moses that was rescued from the bulrushes & keeps a second-hand clothing-store in
    Market Street? Dear Sammy—Keep up your lick & you will become a great minister of the gospel

  • November 7, 1866

    Submitted by scott on

    November 7 Wednesday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Washoe City,
    Nevada sometime between these dates [MTL 1: 366n3; MTPO “Mark Twain on the Platform”].
    “Card from Mark Twain” dated Nov. 1 ran in the Enterprise [Camfield bibliog.].

  • November 8, 1866

    Submitted by scott on

    November 8 Thursday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Dayton, Nevada, probably at
    the Odeon Hall Saloon, where Sam sometimes drank and played billiards. He arrived in Virginia
    City “about 12 in the evening…from Dayton” [Clark 903].

  • November 10, 1866

    Submitted by scott on

    November 10 Saturday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at the Gold Hill Theatre, Gold
    Hill, Nevada. After the lecture Sam and Denis McCarthy were the victims of a prank robbery on the
    one-mile highway between Gold Hill and Virginia City called “the divide.” An all-night farewell
    party was promised in Virginia City. Sam and McCarthy were on foot. The “robbers” took about $125
    in coin, and a $300 gold watch that Sam highly prized, a present to him by A.S. “Sandy”
    Baldwin and Theodore Winters [Clark 903].

  • November 11, 1866

    Submitted by scott on

    November 11 Sunday – Sam’s CARD TO THE HIGHWAYMEN ran in the Enterprise:
    Last night I lectured in Gold Hill, on the Sandwich Islands. At ten o’clock I started on foot to
    Virginia, to meet a lot of personal friends who were going to set up all night with me and start me off
    in good shape for San Francisco in the morning. This social programme proved my downfall. But for
    it, I would have remained in Gold Hill. As we “raised the hill” and straightened up on the “Divide,” a
    man just ahead of us (Mac, my agent, and myself), blew an ordinary policemen’s whistle, and Mac

  • November 12, 1866

    Submitted by scott on

    November 12 Monday – At noon, Sam and Denis McCarthy left Virginia City by the Pioneer
    Stage via Donner Lake route for San Francisco. Just as the stage was leaving from in front of the
    Wells Fargo office, the chief of police George Birdsall handed Sam a package containing his watch,
    money, two jackknives, corkscrew, toothpick, three lead pencils, and the masks worn by the “robbers.”
    According to this account, Sam refused to shake hands with Birdsall and ordered the stage driver to go