• February 6, 1864

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    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].

  • February 7, 1864

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    February 7 Sunday – The New York Mercury ran Sam’s article, “Doings in Nevada” [Powers, MT A
    Life 134; Camfield bibliog.]. Note: Fatout reports this as “For Sale or to Rent,” a spoof advertising
    used territorial officials rejected by the voters, and connects this publication to the help of Artemus
    Ward [MT in VC 131].

  • February 12, 1864

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    February 12 Friday – Sam’s article, dated Feb. 5, “Winter’s New House,” ran in the Enterprise. It
    described the Carson City home of Theodore Winters, who had struck it rich in the Ophir vein and
    became a principal stockholder in the Spanish Mine. Also in the Enterprise was “An Excellent
    School” [ET&S 1: 339].

  • February 13, 1864

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    February 13 Saturday – “Letter from Mark Twain,” Carson City, was published in the Enterprise.
    The weekly letter, “The Carson Undertaker,” was an attack on the Carson Independent [Smith 159].

  • February 21, 1864

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    February 21 Sunday – Sam’s sketch “Those Blasted Children,” (written on Jan. 9 and completed
    during a long night session lasting until 7 AM on Jan. 10) was published in the New York Sunday
    Mercury [ET&S 1: 348]. Sam’s made-up letter to “Mark Twain” from “Zeb. Leavenworth” contained a
    “sovereign remedy” for stammering children—sawing off the child’s underjaw. Zeb and Beck Jolly
    had been Sam’s shipmates on the John J. Roe [MTL 1: 271-2n2].

  • February 27, 1864

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    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

  • February 28, 1864

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    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, 1864

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    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].

  • March 1, 1864

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    March 1 Tuesday – Governor James Warren Nye (1815-1876) appointed Sam to a two-year term as
    notary for Storey County [MTL 1: 279n9]. In his Autobiographical Dictation of Apr. 2, 1906 Sam
    described Nye:

  • March 2, 1864

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    March 2 Wednesday – Menken and troupe opened at Maguire’s New Opera House. Sam had
    written a series of reviews including some severe criticism of other companies who performed in
    Maguire’s Opera House. No doubt he was on hand for Adah Menken’s Virginia City debut. Benson
    writes, “Every seat in the house had been sold the day previous…as no one wanted to miss seeing the
    glamorous star” [95]. The show was not a great success due to Adah’s choice of the play The French
    Spy for opening night, where she wore too many clothes [Fatout, MT in VC 162].

  • March 3, 1864

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    March 3 Thursday – Henry L. Blodgett and Sam. L. Clemens, notaries public, began running
    advertisements in the Virginia City Evening Bulletin [MTL 1: 279n9].

  • March 4 to 7, 1864

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    March 4 to 7 Monday – Sam visited Como, Nevada, near Carson City, purpose unknown. Daniel
    Martin, a past resident of Hannibal owned a saloon in Como, so it’s likely Sam saw him. He would
    see him again in the Sandwich Islands, and write about a “learned pig” Martin had. Martin claimed
    the pig could speak seven languages! [MTL 1: 340n3].

  • March 6, 1864

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    March 6 Sunday – Sam was “an associate, apparently in a sort of unofficial advisory capacity” for
    The Weekly Occidental, a new literary paper published by Thomas Fitch and Co. This was an
    ambitious journal that may have had as many as seven editions. The first five, from Mar. 6 to Apr. 3,
    1864 [RI UC 1993 explanatory notes 678]. The contributors were Joe Goodman, Dan De Quille, Dr.
    R. Eichler, Fitch and Rollin Daggett. It was once thought the publication had only one issue. Fatout

  • March 7, 1864

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    March 7 Monday – By this date, Adah Menken was giving the miners what they wanted and what
    had built her reputation, Mazeppa, where she rode a steed up an incline in flesh colored tights which
    left little to the imagination. That is, Adah wore the tights, not the steed. Fatout writes: “Julie Bulette,
    the highly esteemed madam, regal in sables, occupied a stage box. Joe Goodman went all out in
    unrestrained praise…” [MT in VC 162].

  • March 18, 1864

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    March 18 Friday – Sam wrote from Virginia City to sister Pamela and sent a drawing he made of
    himself for his niece, Annie Moffett. He wrote about Joe Goodman going to the Sandwich
    Islands (Hawaii): “I wanted to go with Joe, but the news-editor was expecting every day to get sick
    (he has since accomplished it,) & we could not all leave at once.” Sam also wrote of the gold watch
    he’d received at the meeting of the Third House of the legislature on Jan. 25 [MTL 1: 275].

  • March 31, 1864

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    March 31 Thursday – Adah Menken “suddenly left Virginia without saying goodbye to anybody,
    and returned to San Francisco.” Of course, she had $36,000 worth of comfort plus gifts of stock
    certificates bearing a naked lady on a galloping stallion, which she sold a year later for $50,000
    [Fatout, MT in VC 167]. She died in 1868 at age 33.

  • April 1, 1864

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    April 1 Friday – “Another Traitor – Hang Him!” a hoax article in the Enterprise is attributed to Sam
    [Fatout, MT in VC 180]. Also printed in the Evening Bulletin on Apr. 1 as “Another Goak” [Camfield
    bibliog.].

  • April 14, 1864

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    April 14 Thursday – Sam wrote to Orion, resigning his commission as a notary public for Storey
    County [MTL 1: 279n9]. No reason was given, but this work was similar to the scraps of work and
    fees his father, John Marshall Clemens, had sought, and so by association, Sam may have concluded
    the small fees were not worth the effort. Noted on the letter for Apr. 15 is Orion’s acceptance.

  • April 16, 1864

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    April 16 Saturday – Sam and Dan De Quille had been taking fencing lessons from Professor O. V.
    Chauvel, who ran a gymnasium at 12 North C Street [Mack 251]. The Gold Hill Daily News ran an
    article about their fencing expertise: