March 8 Sunday – On or about this date Sam received a negative reply from the editors of the Alta to his request to reuse the Holy Land letters in his new book [MTL 2: 200].
Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Forty-five” dated Sept. 1867 at “Jerusalem” ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 266-72].
March 8–10 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to his mother and family. Paine paraphrases this letter, evidently not extant, about Sam’s decision to travel to San Francisco and talk to “those Alta thieves face to face” [MTB 361]. He knew Colonel John McComb and Frederick MacCrellish well.
March 9 Monday – The Washington Evening Star announced:
“Mark Twain”—Clemens—has left Washington for California to make arrangements for the publication of his work [Muller 137].
November 19 Tuesday – Charles Dickens arrived in Boston to begin a five-month tour, lecturing and reading from his works [MTL 2: 104n3].
Quaker City arrived at New York City at 10 AM to complete the excursion, 5 months and 11 days long.
November 20 Wednesday – Sam wrote two letters to his mother, Jane Clemens and family upon arriving in New York, and finished them this day.
—the Herald folks got me at 6 o’clock, & notwithstanding I had an engagement to dine at the St. Nicholas with some ladies [Mary Fairbanks and Charles Langdon have been identified]. & take them to the theatre, I sat down in one of the editorial rooms & wrote a long article that will make the Quakers get up & howl in the morning.
November 21 Thursday – After a dinner with the New York Herald’s editorial board, Sam took the night train to Washington, D.C [MTL 2: 109 n2; Bliss 58].
Sam’s “Holy Land Excursion. Letter from Mark Twain Number Twenty-five” dated Sept. 6 ran in the Alta California [McKeithan 168-72].
Elisha P. Bliss (1822-1880) of the American Publishing Co. wrote to Clemens:
November 22 Friday – Sam arrived in Washington, D.C. and roomed with his new employer, Senator William Morris Stewart (1827-1909) in a second-floor apartment run by 70-year-old Miss Virginia Wells. “Clemens took his meals and socialized at the Round Robin bar at the Willard Hotel (see insert picture)….a favorite watering hole of Washington power brokers” [Bliss 64].
November 24 Sunday – Sam wrote from Washington to Frank Fuller about his strategy for lecturing somewhere other than “in the provinces.”
November 25 Monday – Sam wrote from Washington, D.C. to Charles H. Webb, sending a penciled draft of the first two acts of a play about the Quaker City trip. He also confessed his inability to find a sweetheart named “Pauline” (unknown) and asked to be remembered to her [MTL 2: 115].
November 29 Friday – The New York Times ran a 1,700 word article on the front page signed by “Scupper Nong” about a meeting of a correspondent and General Ulysses S. Grant. Muller calls this the “Scupper Nong Letter” (in Chapter 3) and notes it was reprinted the following day in the Philadelphia Daily Evening Telegraph with the byline of Mark Twain [47]. The article was the result of Sam and Bill Swinton calling on Grant, who was not at home at the time.
November 30 Saturday – Sam’s 32nd birthday. “The Scupper Nong Letters—From the National Capital—An Interview with General Grant” ran in the Philadelphia Daily Evening Telegraph [Muller 47].