Mark Twain - Reporter: Day By Day

October 30 Friday – The Enterprise ran “Clemens’s Reply to the Gold Hill (Nev.) News” [Camfield bibliog.].

October 30 Monday – Sam’s article, “Lisle Lester on Her Travels” ran in the San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle:
Lisle Lester, who is probably the worst writer in the world, though a good-hearted woman and a woman who means well, notwithstanding the distressing productions of her pen, has been visiting the Insane Asylum and favors the Marysville Appeal with some of her experiences [ET&S 2: 483].

October 31 Saturday – The “Stock Broker’s Prayer,” a burlesque Lord’s prayer, attributed to Sam, ran in the Amador Weekly Ledger, probably reprinted from an earlier lost Enterprise item:

October 31–November 2 Thursday – Sam’s short insert, “Steamer Departures” ran in the Enterprise sometime between these dates, and is another humorous example of Sam making interest out of boring news—a departure list in this case for the Pacific Mail Steamship’s Colorado, which left for Panama on Oct. 30, 1865 carrying 600 passengers.

October 4 Saturday – The hoax known as “The Petrified Man” ran in the Enterprise, and was reprinted by many newspapers in the West—some swallowed it whole, and some, after a few days, saw the joke [Fatout, MT Speaks 4; Mack 213].

PETRIFIED MAN

October 6 Thursday – The following four local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Burglary—Two Men Shot,” “Great Seal of Nevada,” “An Interesting Correspondence,” and “Trial of the Folsom Street Wharf Rioters” [Branch, C of Call 300].

October 8 Saturday – Sam’s article, “Concerning the Answer to That Conundrum,” was published in the Californian [ET&S 2: 72]. The following four local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam:
“Judicial Change,” “A Rough Customer,” “Police Court,” and “Convicted” [Branch, C of Call 300].

October 8 Sunday – Around noon on a peaceful Sabbath day, a severe earthquake hit San Francisco. Sam’s later account: I was walking along Third Street, and facing north, when the first shock came; I was walking fast, and it “broke up my gait” pretty completely—checked me—just as a strong wind will do when you turn a corner and face it suddenly….The noise accompanying the shocks was a tremendous rasping sound, like the violent shaking and grinding together of a block of brick houses. It was about the most disagreeable sound you can imagine [ET&S 2: 304]. See Jump’s cartoon insert.

October 9 Friday ca. – Sam left San Francisco for Carson City.

October 9 Sunday – The following four local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “The Camanche,” “The Roderick Case,” “Miscegenation,” and “A Nuisance” [Branch, C of Call 300].

September 1 Thursday – The following ten local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam:
“The Cosmopolitan Hotel Besieged,” “Strategy, My Boy,” “A Doubtful Case,” “Mechanics’ Fair,” “Police Subjects,” “Kane Presentation,” “Cannibalistic,” “The Theatres, Etc.: Mr. Masset’s Lecture —‘Drifting About’,” “Rincon School Militia,” and “Fine Picture of Rev. Mr. King” [Branch, C of Call 296-7].

September 10 Saturday – The following five local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam:
“Curiosities,” “A Philanthropic Nation,” “Race for the Occidental Hotel Premium,” “Discharged,” and “Doing a General Business” [Branch, C of Call 298].

The Golden Era announced that Bret Harte was editor of the magazine. Harte would be editor until Nov. 19, 1864; and again from Dec. 9 to 30, 1865 [Benson 119].

September 11 Sunday – The following two local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Attempted Assassination of a Detective Officer,” and “Large” [Branch, C of Call 298].

September 13 Sunday – The San Francisco Golden Era reprinted Sam’s sketch, “Bigler vs. Tahoe,” which appeared some unknown time before in the Enterprise. Sam favored Bigler as a name over Tahoe, which he ridiculed [ET&S 1: 288-290].

September 13 Tuesday – The following seven local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “The Camanche,” “An Abolition Outrage,” “Sad Accident—Death of Jerome Rice,” “Lost Children,” “Police Target Excursion,” “Sent Up,” and “Plethoric” [Branch, C of Call 298].

September 14 Wednesday – The following two local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Two Hundred Dollars Reward,” and “Board of Education” [Branch, C of Call 298].

September 15 Thursday – The following six local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “An Ingenious Contrivance,” “Mining Machinery,” “Interesting Litigation,” “A Specimen Case,” “Strange Coincidence,” and “County Hospital Developments” [Branch, C of Call 298].

September 16 Tuesday – Sam’s article, “ANOTHER INNOCENT MAN KILLED,” appeared in the Territorial Enterprise. Since the shooting was on Sunday and the paper did not print on Mondays, Marleau thinks this Tuesday was “likely the first day Samuel L. Clemens reported for the Territorial Enterprise” [“Some Early” 12].

September 16 Friday – The following eight local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam:
“Suicide of Dr. Raymond,” “More Donations,” “The Alleged Swindling,” “Vegetable Boquets,” “Extraordinary Enterprise,” “Officer Rose Recovering,” “Night Blooming Cereus,” and “For the East” [Branch, C of Call 298].

September 17 Thursday – Sam wrote another “Letter from Mark Twain” (dated Sept. 13.) from San Francisco to the Enterprise about the trip over, first to Carson City on the Carpenter & Hoog stagecoach, then by the Pioneer Stage to San Francisco. The letter included a humorous account of Sam’s traveling companion, R.W. Billet, being gawked at by pioneers who thought him black because he had so much dust on him from the stage trip over. [ET&S 1: 291-5].

September 17 Saturday – Sam wrote from San Francisco to William Wright (Dan De Quille) about Sam selling his furniture and about debts. Sam was tired of night work on the Call:

“I don’t work after 6 in the evening, now on the ‘Call.’ I got disgusted with night work.”

Sam’s new deal with George Barnes, owner of the Call, was for shorter hours and less pay [MTL 1: 309]. In his Autobiography Sam related the changes and finding a new assistant to help him with the work:

September 18 Sunday – Sam’s article, “Due Warning,” which identified himself as “Mark Twain” appeared in the Morning Call. The piece was about a stolen hat [ET&S 2: 59; Branch, C of Call 135].
Also, six other local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Cruelty to Animals,” “Theatrical Record: Maguire’s Opera House,” “The Election of Coroner,” “Take One!,” “Suffering for Opinion’s Sake,” and “The Chinese Banquet” [Branch, C of Call 299].

September 2 Friday – The following six local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “Lost Child,” “The Camanche,” “The Art Gallery,” “Rewards of Merit,” “The Mechanics’ Fair,” and “The Roll of Fame” [Branch, C of Call 297].

September 20 Sunday – The first of three articles Sam wrote for the San Francisco Golden Era appeared: “How to Cure a Cold.” The article was a hit with readers. The Enterprise and the Era were connected by the past work of Goodman, McCarthy and De Quille. Sam recognized the value the Era might have to his career. This piece was revised several times, and appeared later in his Jumping Frog book and was included in Sketches, New and Old (1875) as “Curing a Cold” [ET&S 1: 296-303; Camfield bibliog.].

September 20 Tuesday – The following seven local articles in the Call are attributed to Sam: “The ‘Board’ and the Rincon School,” “Mayhem,” “The Chinese Banquet,” “Camanche Matters,” “Board of Supervisors,” “The Theatres, Etc,: Maguire’s Opera House,” and “The Theatres, Etc,: Wilson-Zoyara Circus” [Branch, C of Call 299].