February 19 Tuesday – At Cooper Hall in New York City, Sam was impressed by the platform speaking of 24-year-old Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842-1932), a Quaker girl who had been speaking for five years. Sam was in the audience at Dickinson’s lecture, “Something To Do, or Work for Women.” Dickinson was a force in the suffrage movement, and instrumental in adoption of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
February 21 Thursday – This announcement appeared in the editorial column of Street and Smith’s New York Weekly, p. 4:
February 22 Friday – Alta California p. 1, col. 4, ran Sam’s “Letters from Mark Twain” Number 2, dated Dec. 20, “On board steamer COLUMBIA,” [Schmidt; Camfield bibliog.].
February 23 Saturday – Sam’s Alta letter with this date complained of suffering from “the blues” and that his “thoughts persistently ran on funerals and suicide” [MTNJ 1: 301].
Edward P. Hingston, agent for Artemis Ward. wrote to Sam, letter not extant but referred to in Sam’s Feb. 23 to the Alta. “He is rusticating at the seaside. The hope is that he will be well in a week or two and able to reappear.” [MTP]. Note: the article ran in the Alta on 5 Apr 1867.
February 24 Sunday – Alta California prints Sam’s “Letter from Mark Twain” number 3, dated Dec. 23, 1866, with article “Steamer COLUMBIA at sea” [Schmidt; Camfield bibliog.].
March 1 Friday – Sam was invited and attended the opening of the spring season for the grand Bal d’Opera at the new Academy of Music. Sam dressed up in “flowing robes, and purported to be a king of some country or other” [Sanborn 320]. He would become famous for such sartorial exuberance.
March 2 Saturday – Sam telegraphed the proprietors of the San Francisco Alta California (Fred MacCrellish, William Augustus Woodward (1829?-1885), Orlando M. Clayes (1837-1892), and John McComb). “Send me $1,200 at once. I want to go abroad.” Although the owners were skeptical, it was McComb who argued and won the day for Sam to travel abroad in exchange for letters to the Alta [MTL 2: 17].
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 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].
March 12, 13 and 15 Friday – Three articles: “Female Suffrage: Views of Mark Twain” first appeared in the St. Louis Missouri Democrat on these days [Budd, “Collected” 1007; MTTMB 287n1].
These were reprinted in the Alta California April 10, 28, and May 11. From two of Sam’s letters on suffrage:
March 13 Wednesday – Sam’s “Volley from the Down-Trodden” ran in the Missouri Democrat [Camfield bibliog.].
March 14 Thursday – The first of five letters from Hawaii, reprints of five early Sacramento Union letters with “a few minor omissions” ran in the New York Weekly. Dated Mar. 18, 1866, beginning: “We arrived here to-day at noon…” this first article omitted “the short anecdote of Brown’s mistaking a cake of soap for a ‘curious foreign dish’” [The Twainian, Mar. 1944 p2-3]. These letters are notable for their promotional value to Sam’s upcoming New York lecture.
March 15 Friday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “THE FIRST DEATH” which Sam had dated from December 24 to January 1 [Schmidt].
Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” Number IV [bibliog.]. Sam’s article “Iniquitous Crusade Against’ Man’s Regal Birthright Must Be Crushed” ran in the Missouri Democrat [Camfield bibliog.].
March 16 Saturday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “THE TWIN MOUNTAINS” which Sam dated New Year’s Day [Schmidt].
Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” Number V [bibliog.].
March 17 Sunday – Sam was asked to make a few remarks to a Sunday school, at his sister Pamela’s church. Sam told the “Jumping Frog” story, but could not supply a moral from the story, so “let it slide” [MTL 2: 19 n2; Sanborn 322].
Alta California printed Sam’s article “UNDER WAY AGAIN” which Sam dated Jan. 1 [Schmidt].
Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” Number VI [bibliog.]. Sam’s article “A Curtain Lecture Concerning Skating” ran in the New York Sunday Mercury [Camfield bibliog.].
March 19 Tuesday – Sam wrote from St. Louis to Charles Webb asking Webb to telegraph the expected publishing date of the Jumping Frog book, saying that if it is more than ten days off, “I had better lecture here.” Sam felt he would have to return to New York if the book was to be out soon. Webb answered that he could not have the book out before April 25 [MTL 2: 18; Sanborn 323]. Note:
The book was not published until about May 1 and never sold well. Webb simply didn’t have “the stuff” to market Sam properly.
March 23 Saturday – Alta California printed Sam’s article “KEY WEST” dated Jan. 6 [Schmidt].
Camfield lists this as “Letter from Mark Twain” Number VII [bibliog.].
March 24 Sunday – Sam was asked to speak at a Sunday school in Carondelet, a town bordering St. Louis. Sam told the John Godfrey sky-rocket story that later appeared in Roughing It [Sanborn 323].
Sam wrote a letter to the editor of the St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican [Tenney 2]. A humorous advertisement for the Mar. 25 lecture also ran in the same paper, repeating Sam’s promise, first made in the Petaluma performance, to show how cannibals would eat a child, given a volunteer from the audience [Lorch 54].
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 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.].