Mark Twain - Reporter: Day By Day

February 24 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:
D—n Copperopolis—the big ball last night was postponed a week; instead of leaving this morning, the stage will not leave until to-morrow morning. Have lost my pipe, & can’t get another in this hellfired town. Left my knife, meerschaum & toothbrush at Angels—made Dick give me his big navy knife.

This is a pretty town & has about 1000 inhabitants. D—d poor hotel, but if this bad luck will let up on me I will be in Stockton at noon to-morrow & in San Francisco before midnight [MTNJ 1: 82].

February 24 Saturday – Sam traveled to Sacramento [MTL 1: 334n1].

February 24–March 31 Tuesday – “A Sunday in Carson” ran in the Enterprise:

February 25 Wednesday – Sam’s Local Column in the Enterprise included: “The Unreliable,” a continuing mock attack on his rival at the Virginia Union, Clement T. Rice, in answer to his article of Feb. 24 on Sam’s dress:

February 25 Saturday – Sam left Copperopolis, Ca. by stagecoach for Stockton. “Arrived in Stockton at 5 P.M.” [MTNJ 1: 82]. From Stockton he took a riverboat.

February 25 Sunday – Sam wrote his daily Enterprise letter from Sacramento. It ran later that month. He’d arrived there to call on the editors of the Sacramento Union. Sam knew them and wanted to discuss becoming their special correspondent for a couple of months.
LETTER FROM SACRAMENTO [dated February 25, 1866].

February 25–28 Wednesday – Sam’s San Francisco Letter dated Feb. 23 ran in the Enterprise:
Sections: “Voyage of the Ajax,” “Pleasing Incident,” “Off for the Snow Belt,” “After Them,” “Theatrical,” and “A New Biography of Washington” [Schmidt].

February 26 Thursday – Sam printed a mock obituary, which Fatout calls “round one” in the trumped-up feud between Sam and his rival, Clement T. Rice, named by Sam “The Unreliable.” (Earlier jabs at Rice had been made, however). It was reprinted in the Marysville Daily Appeal on Feb. 28.

REPORTORIAL

February 26 Sunday – Sam arrived back in San Francisco. Sam did a few pieces for the Californian and as the San Francisco correspondent for the Territorial Enterprise. In Roughing It, Sam claimed he arrived back in town without a cent. Sam earned $100 a month with daily correspondence
to Enterprise [MTL 1: 321]. From Sam’s notebook:

February 26 Monday – This is most likely the day Sam and the editors of the Union agreed he should go to the Sandwich Islands. The exact agreement with the editors is unknown, but it’s clear Sam was to be paid for each letter from the islands. Sam had told his old school chum, Will Bowen, that he was willing to go anywhere the editors sent him, but since he’d missed out on two trips to the Sandwich Islands, it’s likely Sam suggested or offered that destination [Sanborn 273-4].

February 27 Friday – Dennis Driscoll (1823-1876), bookkeeper for the Enterprise, wrote Dan De Quille about the paper being shorthanded and needing him to return from Iowa, where he’d gone to see family. Driscoll wrote that “Barstow had left our employ,” Joe Goodman had gone to San Francisco to meet his mother; Denis McCarthy had gone off to San Francisco to get married and might not return for a month. “You see this leaves me alone. I am attending to business, with Charley Parker on the outside collecting. Biggs in Joe’s place editing and Sam Clemens localizing.

February 27 Saturday – Adah Isaacs Menken (1835?-1868) arrived in Virginia City. In Sept. 1863 Sam saw her in one of her sixty San Francisco performances of Mazeppa, where she rode horseback in nothing but flesh-colored body-tights. Sam wasn’t impressed with her performances. Adah invited Sam to dinner in her hotel room with Dan De Quille and the Bohemian poet Ada Clare (Jane McElhinney, 1836?-1874). Menken’s current husband, her third, poet and dramatic critic Orpheus C. Kerr (Robert H. Newell 1836-1901), was not allowed in the room. The Jewish actress had also been married to John C.

February 27–March 2 Friday – Sam booked passage to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) sometime after returning to San Francisco.

February 28 Sunday – Sam’s recent Enterprise article “Concerning Notaries” was reprinted in the Golden Era as “Washoe Wit Mark Twain on the Rampage” [Walker 67; Camfield bibliog.].

February 29 Monday – In Virginia City, Sam wrote to J.T. Goodman & Co., asking them to pay Orion $150. This may have been money Sam owed Orion [MTL 1: 273].

February 3 Tuesday – The article “Letter from Carson City,” signed, “Yours, dreamily, Mark Twain” ran in the Enterprise. This is the first article so signed. In this piece Sam pokes fun at his rival, Clement T. Rice, the “Unreliable” [MTL 1: 246].

February 3 Wednesday – The Nevada Territorial Legislature adjourned to attend Jennie Clemens’ funeral at 10 AM [MTL 1: 383; Mack 278].

February 3 Friday – From Sam’s notebook:
Dined at the Frenchman’s, in order to let Dick see how he does things. Had Hellfire soup & the old regular beans & dishwater. The Frenchman has 4 kinds of soup which he furnishes to customers only on great occasions. They are popularly known among the Boarders as Hellfire, General Debility, Insanity & Sudden Death, but it is not possible to describe them….J & me [Jim Gillis]. talking like people 80 years old & toothless [MTNJ 1: 78].

February 3 Saturday – Sam’s article “More Spiritual Investigations” ran in the Enterprise and was reprinted Mar. 11 in the Golden Era [Camfield bibliog.].

February 4 Sunday – Sam’s articles: The Golden Era printed, “Among the Spiritualists” as “Among the Spirits” [Walker 122]; “The Spiritual Séance” first ran in the Enterprise and was later revised for inclusion in The Jumping Frog (1867) [Budd, “Collected” 1006].

February 5 Thursday – Sam’s “Letter from Carson” ran in the Enterprise and included: Sturtevant & Curry wedding, a murder case, and mining companies, and “The Unreliable”:

February 5 Friday – Sam wrote “Winter’s New House,” published a week later in the Enterprise, along with a second article written this day “An Excellent School” [ET&S 1: 343].

February 6 or 7 Wednesday – Sam’s highly personal attack on Albert Evans is part of his San Francisco Letter written on Feb. 3, titled, “Take the Stand, Fitz Smythe,” printed in the Enterprise on one of these dates. Evans was biased in favor of the San Francisco police, a corrupt organization at that time. Other items in the letter: “Personal,” “More Cemeterial Ghastliness,” “Rev. Charles Ellis,” and “More Outcroppings (II)” [Schmidt].

February 6 Friday – Another “Letter from Carson” [Camfield, bibliog.].

February 6 Saturday – Sam wrote to the Territorial Enterprise describing the fierce competition for 72 positions of county notary created by the legislature. “There are seventeen hundred and forty-two applications for notaryships already on file in the Governor’s office.” Sam decided he might as well apply, too. The article, “Concerning Notaries,” appeared in the Enterprise on Feb. 9 and was reprinted in the Golden Era on the 28 [MTL 1: 278n9; Sanborn 224].