New York and the Mid West: 1867 - Day By Day

March 25 Monday – In St. Louis, Sam gave his “Sandwich Islands” lecture to a standing room only crowd at Mercantile Library Hall for the benefit of the South St. Louis Mission Sunday School.

March 26 Tuesday – At Mercantile Library Hall in St. Louis, Sam repeated the lecture, but due to bad weather only about 80 showed up. In the audience was Henry M. Stanley (1841-1904) of Livingstone fame, reporting for a Missouri paper. Stanley took down much of Sam’s lecture in shorthand [Lorch 56]. See Mar. 28 entry. On the first performance, from the St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican:

March 27 Wednesday ca. – On or about this day Sam traveled to Hannibal, where he stayed about a week [Lorch 57].

March 28 Thursday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “THE OVERGROWN METROPLOIS” dated Feb.2 [Schmidt]. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” Number VIII [bibliog.]. Henry M. Stanley reviewed Sam’s lecture of Mar. 26 for the St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat. “Everyone retired highly delighted with the irrepressible Californian,” wrote Stanley, who became a rather controversial figure by 1872, when Sam first visited England. Stanley claimed to be American but was born in Wales [MTL 5: 201n3&4]. Note: Lorch claims Stanley reported for the Missouri Republican [56].

March 3 Sunday – On a snowy night Sam left New York for St. Louis on the 8 o’clock New Jersey Central. It was a 52-hour rail connection. On the same day the New York Sunday Mercury published “The Winner of the Medal,” by “that prince of humorous sightseers, Mark Twain, whose contributions to California light-literature has gained him a front-rank position among the sparkling wits of the Land of Gold” [MTL 2: 11n3, 18n1].

March 30 Saturday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “MY ANCIENT FRIENDS, THE POLICE” dated Feb. 18 [Schmidt]. Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” Number IX [bibliog.].

March 5 Tuesday – The New York Saturday Evening Express published “Barnum’s First Speech in Congress,” by Mark Twain, on page one [MTL 2: 11-12n3]. Sam arrived in St. Louis at midnight after sitting up for two nights in coach due to full sleeping cars. Sam was returning home after six years and four months. He went directly to his sister Pamela’s house at 12 Chestnut Street, where he “sat up till breakfast time, talking and telling lies.” Sam’s niece, Annie Moffett, was almost fifteen and his namesake nephew, Sammy, was six [Sanborn 320-21; MTL 2: 18n1].

March 6 Wednesday – Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne) died of tuberculosis after his last performance on Jan. 23 in London. Ward was 33. He was interred near London but his body was later shipped back to America to be buried at Waterford, Maine. It arrived in New York in May, when Sam noted the event in one of his Alta letters.

March 7 Thursday – The New York Weekly announced it would print (re-print) a series of Mark Twain’s “inimitable papers.” The weekly reprinted five of Sandwich Islands Letters to the Union, but without mention of the prior publication [MTL 2: 12n3].

May 1 Wednesday – Fuller and Sam had taken Cooper Institute’s hall at a $500 expense before they discovered the many competing attractions: Schuyler Colfax (1823-1885) speaking at Irving Hall; Adelaide Ristori (1822-1906), famous singer, at the French Theatre; Thomas Maguire’s “Imperial Troupe of Japanese Jugglers” at the New York Academy of Music; and “The Black Crook,” an act Lorch calls “the most daring girlie show of the time,” at Niblo’s Garden [Lorch 63].

May 10 Friday – Sam repeated his successful “Sandwich Islands” lecture at the Athenæum in Brooklyn [MTL 2: 40]. From the Brooklyn Eagle of May 11:

May 13 Monday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “HAPPY,” dated Mar. 15 [Schmidt].
Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” Number XII [bibliog.].

May 14 Tuesday – Sam wrote to John Stanton (Corry O’Lanus) city editor of the Eagle, asking if “a brother member of the press” might introduce him at his fourth lecture, which was later canceled [MTL 2: 44].

May 15 Wednesday – Sam repeated his successful “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Irving Hall in New York. He planned a fourth New York lecture in Brooklyn at the Academy of Music but canceled [MTL 2: 40]. Note: Several authorities have misdated this lecture as May 16. The New York Times, May 14 & 15 ads, p.7, confirms 15 th . Lorch points out the “enormous” importance of these three New York area lectures—they provided him with added celebrity for the Holy Land excursion, but most of all “his fear of the greater sophistication of eastern audiences greatly diminished” [67].

May – Sam spent weeks in New York, catching up on his letters to the Alta California. He gathered information from a variety of sources on subjects of interest to Alta readers. He compiled information on the popularity of California wines in the East, on New York weather, on the better hotels. He visited the Blind Asylum, the Midnight Mission, which tried to help prostitutes, the Five Points slums, and the Bible House. At the Bible House Sam introduced himself to Herman Dyer, doctor of divinity, and told him about the good work and influence that Rev. Franklin S.

May 2 Thursday – The second printing of Jumping Frog sold out [Slotta 20]. Over the next few days a third and fourth printings also sold out, but this information was never given to Sam. (See Dec.22, 1870 entry. Also A.D. notes AMT 2: 487 showing 4,076 books printed.)

May 4 Saturday – Positive reviews of The Jumping Frog continued. From the Boston Evening Transcript, p.1:
As a humorist the author of these sketches has acquired a wide newspaper reputation, not only for his drollery, but for his sagacity of observation, his keep perception of character, and the individuality of his style and tone of thinking (“New Publications” in the Boston Evening Transcript, p1) [Budd, Reviews 25].
The New York Citizen agreed, adding:

May 5 Sunday – From the New York Dispatch:
Of the great army of humorists, we have always placed Mark Twain at the head, and it is, we believe, universally concluded that his quiet wit, forcible hits and unwavering pleasantry, combined with a certain gravity of expression peculiar to himself, are points not to be found in other funny writers of his day, and are as admirable as they are scarce (“New Publications” in the New York Dispatch, p7) [Budd, Reviews 26].

May 6 Monday – Upon his return to New York, Sam had been presented with an invitation (a “call”) by 200 Californians living in New York to give his Sandwich Islands lecture. Frank Fuller, a Comstock mining pal of Sam’s and later governor of Utah for a day, headed the California committee. Sam and Fuller set this as the date of the lecture and hired Cooper Institute’s Hall, one of the largest in the city. Nevada Senator and former Territorial Governor James Warren Nye was to introduce Sam.

May 7 Tuesday –The New York newspapers were complimentary, if brief, about Sam’s May 6 lecture at the Cooper Institute. Lorch says “The most extensive and perceptive” review was by Edward H. House of the New York Tribune [66]. Fatout says there were “ten lines in the Sun, twenty in the Herald, thirty-eight in the Times, a quarter of a column in the World” [Circuit 80]. Sam met “Ned” House shortly after arriving in New York; It was House who had accompanied Sam to sign up for the Quaker City excursion.

May 8 Wednesday – Charles Webb published a special railway edition of Jumping Frog with paper wrappers. It was only available at railway stations in New York City and was quickly discontinued [Slotta 20]. (See Dec.22, 1870 entry; Also A.D. notes AMT 2: 487 showing 4,076 books printed.)

March 25 - April 9 - Midwest Lecture Tour: 5 engagements - "Sandwich Island

From San Francisco Alta California, May 26, 1867

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