December 22–23 Saturday –Sam’s San Francisco Letter, included “Macdougall vs. Maguire” was datelined the 20 and printed in the Enterprise [ET&S 2: 402]. Also included: “The New Swimming Bath,” “Buckingham,” “The ‘Eccentrics’,” – and the following texts not available: “Mining Operations,” “Major Farren,” and “Sam Brannan” [Schmidt].

December 23 Saturday – Sam’s original sketches, “The Christmas Fireside. For Good Little Boys and Girls. By Grandfather Twain,” and “The Story of the Bad Little Boy That Bore a Charmed Life” and “Enigma” were printed in the Californian [Budd, “Collected” 1006]. These stories were the germ for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Once there was a bad little boy, whose name was Jim—though, if you will notice, you will find that bad little boys are nearly always called James in your Sunday-school books. It was very strange, but still it was true, that this one was called Jim.

December 24 or 26 Tuesday – (the Enterprise did not publish on Mondays) – Sam’s San Francisco Letter, dated Dec. 20, included, EDITORIAL POEM, FACETIOUS, MAYO AND ALDRICH, FINANCIAL, PERSONAL, MOCK DUEL—ALMOST, AND “MORE WISDOM!.” The letter contained more scattered attacks on Albert Evans [ET&S 2: 336].

December 25 Monday – Christmas – The following articles supposed to be by Twain, ran in the San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle:
OUR NEW JUDGE

December 26–27 Wednesday – Taken from Sam’s San Francisco Letter, dated Dec. 23, were “Gardner Indicted,” “Extraordinary Delicacy,” “Shooting,” “Another Enterprise,” and “Spirit of the Local Press,” printed in the Territorial Enterprise [ET&S 2: 413].

December 29 Friday – Sam’s San Francisco Letter given this date was published in the Enterprise sometime in Jan. 1866. Sections: “Busted,” “Inspiration of Louderback,” “A Pleasant Farce,” “Personal,” (no text available for the last two items) and:

THE BLACK HOLE OF SAN FRANCISCO

December 31 Sunday – “Convicts” is part of a San Francisco Letter dated Dec. 28 and published in the Enterprise. On Dec. 10 a group of five Comstock reporters sat for a group portrait at Sutterly Brothers in Virginia City, afterwards making the rounds of saloons and ordering a banquet at the International Hotel. All five men were old friends of Sam. Some one (I do not know who,) left me a card photograph, yesterday, which I do not know just what to do with. It has the names of Dan De Quille, W. M. Gillespie, Alf. Doten, Robert Lowery and Charles A.

Fitz Smythe & Corrupt Cops – Sandwich Islands –Volcanoes & Captain Cook
Sacramento Union Letters – Anson Burlingame – Hornet Disaster
Hymns on the Smyrniote – “Trouble begins at 8”– First Lecture tour
Virginia City Homecoming – Robbed on the Divide – San Francisco Lectures
Isthmus with Ned Wakeman – Cholera Aboard

January – Sam’s San Francisco Letter of Dec. 29, 1865 ran in the Enterprise (See entry.) Another Enterprise item, “New Year’s Day,” was a narrative of Sam trying to find breakfast on the holiday. (Reprinted in the Golden Era on Jan. 14.) [Walker 111-3]. The following items also ran in the Enterprise sometime in January: “The Kearney Street Ghost Story,” “Captain Montgomery,” “The Chapman Family” [Schmidt].

January 7 Sunday – Sam’s article, “Policemen’s Presents” appeared in the San Francisco Golden Era [Budd, “Collected” 1006].

January 8 Monday – Sam’s San Francisco Letter, dated this day, ran sometime in January in the Enterprise. Sections: “White Man Mighty Onsartain,” “ Mint Defalcation,” “The Opening Night,” and:
THE PORTRAITS

January 11 Thursday – Sam’s San Francisco Letter, dated this day, ran sometime in January in the Enterprise. Sections: “Another Romance,” “Precious Stones,” “Premature,” “A Handsome Testimonial,” “The California Art Union,” “Theatrical,” (text not available for the last four items), and Gorgeous New Romance, By Fitz Smythe!” From “Another Romance”: I don’t want all the glory fastened on the Captains and Chiefs and regulars, and the deeds of the specials— the scallawags who really do all the work—left unsung.

January 13 Saturday – The Ajax steamed out of San Francisco “in a pelting rain” on its first voyage to Hawaii. Frear writes:

January 14 Sunday – The Golden Era printed Sam’s article, “New Year’s Day” [Walker 111].

January 16–18 Thursday – Sam’s satire sketch about Albert Evans includes vernacular from a boy, something Sam would use to great advantage in his greatest literary work, Huckleberry Finn. The sketch, “Fitz Smythe’s Horse,” and an item “What Have the Police Been Doing?” ran in the Enterprise between these dates. Most copies of the Enterprise are lost, but it required about three days to travel between Virginia City and San Francisco, and the sketch was reprinted under the heading “Mark Twain” by the Golden Era on Jan. 21, thereby dating the Virginia City publication.

January, mid – Sam was arrested for being drunk in public and jailed overnight. He’d been the object of a police watch, after articles criticizing police corruption and racism.

January 18 Thursday ca. – According to a Jan. 19 dispatch by Albert Evans, San Francisco correspondent for the Gold Hill Daily News, Sam was “in the dock for being drunk over night.” Since Sam and Evans were anything but on friendly terms, it’s probable that Evans would not delay reporting Sam’s misdeeds. Sam appeared before Justice of the Peace Alfred Barstow [Fanning 107-8].

January 19 Friday ca. – Based on the events of Sam’s imprisonment, Evans’ dispatch, and Sam’s appearance before a magistrate, Fanning concludes this the likely date that Sam “put the pistol to my head but wasn’t man enough to pull the trigger” [108]. ].

January 20 Saturday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to his mother, and sister Pamela:
“I don’t know what to write—my life is so uneventful. I wish I was back there piloting up & down the river again. Verily, all is vanity and little worth—save piloting” [MTL 1: 327].

January 21 Sunday – The Golden Era reprinted Sam’s articles, “What have the Police been Doing, ” and “Fitz Smythe’s Horse” [Walker 97-99]. Sam’s attacks on the police have often been cited as a contributing factor in his departure from San Francisco. Regardless, Sam enjoyed poking the police with his pen. This first article is doubtless one the Call would not publish.

January 22 Monday – Sam’s jailing brought delight to his rivals, including Albert Evans of the Alta California, who wrote articles objecting to the relocation of the city’s slaughter houses. Evans wrote that such a change would allow prevailing winds to give the entire city “a stench which is only second in horrible density to that which prevails in the Police Court when the Bohemian of the Sage-Brush is in the dock for being drunk over night” [Sanborn 270].

January 23 Tuesday – Sam’s San Francisco Letter dated Jan. 18 ran in the Enterprise. Sections: “A Righteous Judge,” “The Righteous Shall Not be Forgotten,” and “Chief Burke.”
A RIGHTEOUS JUDGE

January 24 Wednesday – Sam’s San Francisco Letter dated Jan. 24 ran later in January in the Enterprise. Sections: “More Outcroppings!” “Among the Spiritualists,” “Personal,” and “How They Take It.” (No text available for the last two items) [Schmidt: reprinted in Mark Twain: San Francisco Correspondent, (Book Club of California, 1957) 66-67].

January 28 Sunday – The Golden Era printed or reprinted five articles by Sam: “The Kearny Street Ghost Story,” “Captain Montgomery,” “The Chapman Family,” “Busted, and gone Abroad,” and “Miseries of Washoe Men” [Walker 104, 120].

January 30–31 Wednesday – Sam’s San Francisco Letter dated Jan. 28 ran in the Enterprise: Sections: “Closed Out,” “Bearding the Fenian in his Lair,” “Card from Volunteers,” “Sabbath Reflections,” and “Neodamode” [Schmidt: “Closed Out” reprinted in ET&S 2: 349; “Neadomode” reprinted in Taper 200-1].