Sandwich Islands Tours: Day By Day

November 17 Saturday – Sam’s sketch “The Story of a Scriptural Panoramist” ran in the Californian. It was later included in Sketches, New and Old (1875) [Camfield bibliog.]. Scharnhorst writs that the receipts from Sam’s lecture of Nov. 16 were garnished to “satisfy part of the judgment” from posting bond for “a friend who then fled to Nevada” two years before (Steve Gillis) [“Mark Twain’s Imbroglio with the San Francisco Police” American Literature (Dec 1990) p.691]. Sanborn claims there “are no facts to support” the story of Sam posting a bond for Gillis [255].

November 2 Friday ca. – On or about this day Sam wrote from Virginia City to Catherine C. (Kate) Lampton and Annie E. and Samuel E. Moffett. Kate was Sam’s first cousin; Annie and Sammy were Pamela Moffett’s children, Sam’s niece and nephew. Teasing Annie again about the “bullrushers” story, Sam asked, How is old Moses that was rescued from the bulrushes & keeps a second-hand clothing-store in Market Street? Dear Sammy—Keep up your lick & you will become a great minister of the gospel some day, & then I shall be satisfied.

November 21 Wednesday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Armory Hall, San Jose, California. This is the first lecture where Sam offered to demonstrate cannibalism as practiced in the Sandwich Islands, asking for a mother to bring her child to the platform. This device was successful and yielded much laughter if also a few criticisms now and then from the press for being in bad taste [Lorch 47].

The Washoe Evening Slope ran a brief item that declared the proceeds of Sam’s second lecture in San Francisco had been attached for the benefit of one of his creditors [Lorch 46].

November 26 Monday – The San Jose Mercury:

November 27 Tuesday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Oakland, Calif. in College Hall. Sam stayed with J. Ross Browne and family in Oakland. [MTL 1: 370n6]. (See September, mid to late entry.) The turnout was small for this lecture, only about 200 people, which Lorch attributes to “a misunderstanding about the time at which the talk was to take place, though the entire city council canceled a meeting and came to the hall as a group.” Sam had to wait for the school band to finish a long concert before speaking [47].

November 3 Saturday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Carson Theatre in Carson City.

November 30 Friday – Sam’s 31 st birthday. He wrote at least three letters to the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, reporting on some of the stops on his interior lecture tour. The first known of these, MARK TWAIN’S INTERIOR NOTES ran with descriptions of Marysville, Grass Valley, The Eureka Mine, Nevada, and: Sacramento

November 7 Wednesday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Washoe City, Nevada sometime between these dates [MTL 1: 366n3; MTPO “Mark Twain on the Platform”]. “Card from Mark Twain” dated Nov. 1 ran in the Enterprise [Camfield bibliog.].

November 8 Thursday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Dayton, Nevada, probably at the Odeon Hall Saloon, where Sam sometimes drank and played billiards. He arrived in Virginia City “about 12 in the evening…from Dayton” [Clark 903].

November 9 Friday – Sam gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Silver City, Nevada.

October 11 to November 27 Tuesday – Sam and Denis McCarthy, former part-owner of the Territorial Enterprise, (who Sam now labeled “The Orphan,” quickly organized a lecture tour in California and Nevada. (Lorch gives strong reasoning that the subsequent lecture tour was most likely organized well before this Oct. 2 debut [35-6]). The lecture, titled “Sandwich Islands” made sixteen engagements between these dates at locations where Sam was well known [Sanborn 298-9]. Dates in Silver City, Dayton, and Washoe were canceled.

October 15 Monday – Sam and Denis McCarthy traveled by riverboat to Marysville, California (named for Mary Murphy, a survivor of the Donner Party). There, Sam gave the lecture “Sandwich Islands” at Maguire’s New Theatre [Sanborn 299].

October 17 Wednesday – Sam’s article dated “Sept. 24, San Francisco, An Epistle from Mark Twain THE QUEEN’S ARRIVAL / ALPHABET WARREN / MISC.” ran in the Daily Hawaiian Herald [Schmidt; Camfield bibliog.].

October 2 Tuesday – Sam’s first stage appearance took place at the Academy of Music on Pine Street in San Francisco, a new hall owned by Tom Maguire, who suggested Sam try to make his fortune by entering the lecture field and offering his experiences in the Sandwich Islands. He’d offered the hall to Sam at half price, 50 dollars, in exchange for half the profits. Sam agreed and spent 150 dollars on advertising. He had posters made up announcing the Honolulu Correspondent for the Sacramento Union, “Mark Twain,” would be speaking. “Doors open at 7 o’clock.

October 20 Saturday – Sam and McCarthy traveled by stage through gold boomtowns, Timbuctoo, Smartsville, and Rough and Ready (in modern days nearly empty). Sam gave the lecture “Sandwich Islands” in Hamilton Hall, Grass Valley, California. The Grass Valley Daily Union reported:

October 23 Tuesday – Sam gave the lecture “Sandwich Islands,” in the Nevada Theatre in Nevada City, California, a short distance from Grass Valley. Sam stayed at the National Exchange Hotel. The local newspaper Transcript wrote: “Mark Twain” as a lecturer is far superior to “Artemus Ward” or any of that class….We bespeak for him large audiences wherever he goes [Sanborn 300].

October 24 Wednesday – Sam and McCarthy rode horseback to the old mining camp of Red Dog, California and gave the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at the Odd Fellows Hall.

October 25 Thursday – Sam’s 24 th letter to the Union dated “Kilauea, June 1866: A NOTABLE DISCOVERY” ran in the Union:
FREE-AND-EASY FASHIONS OF NATIVE WOMEN

October 26 Friday – Sam and McCarthy stopped to see Meadow Lake City, also known as Summit City, Ca., the highest of the gold mining districts at 7,100 feet and the place where Orion Clemens had briefly tried a legal office. They arrived at 9 PM [Schmidt: article from S.F. Bulletin, ran Dec. 6].

October 27 Saturday – Sam and McCarthy arrived back at Virginia City about ten p.m.

October 29 Monday – Sam wrote from Virginia City to Robert M. Howland, an old friend from his Nevada mining days, asking if Carson City would turn out to hear Sam lecture. Sam was unsure of the reception he would get there, due to the Sanitary Ball miscegenation prank [MTL 1: 362].
Sam also wrote to Henry R. Mighels to arrange a hall for his lecture:

October 3 Wednesday – Newspaper reviews to Sam’s talk were very positive, as witnessed by this excerpt from the San Francisco Evening-Bulletin of Oct. 3:

October 30 Tuesday – The Territorial Enterprise announced that Sam would perform in Virginia City the following night. “We expect to see the very mountains shake with a tempest of applause” [MTL 5: 682n].

October 31 Wednesday – Sam gave one performance in Virginia City—the “Sandwich Islands” lecture at Maguire’s Opera House. It was a glorious homecoming. The Enterprise wrote, “an immense success” [Sanborn 302]. Sam met with old friends, Dan De Quille, Joe Goodman and Steve Gillis. Gillis urged Sam to speak again at the Opera House, but Sam did not want to repeat himself in any one town. Steven hatched a plot to pull a fake robbery of Sam in Gold Hill as a way of getting Sam to lecture again on a new topic [303].

October 6 Saturday – Sam’s article, MARK TWAIN ON ETIQUETTE, was reprinted in the Daily Hawaiian Herald. (See May 22 entry for excerpt).