Early months – Sam began to itch to go to South America after reading an account of coca and the money that might be made harvesting the plant and distributing it in the U.S. [Powers, Dangerous 241].  In 1910, in “The Turning Point of My Life,” Sam remembered a two-volume work on the exploration of the Amazon, that it “told an astonishing tale about coca, a vegetable product of miraculous powers…” [MTL 1: 68n7].

January 17 Thursday – Sam spoke without prepared remarks to the Keokuk printers at a celebration of the 150 th anniversary of Ben Franklin’s birth. It was perhaps Sam’s first after dinner speech, presaging his fame as a platform speaker. Sam Clemens as “Mark Twain” would be a great entertainer, perhaps the first American icon of the twentieth century.

January 19 Saturday – The Keokuk Gate City, page 7, reported on Sam’s speech under the headline: “The Printer’s Festival. Birthday of Benjamin Franklin” [Selby 7].

April 20 Sunday – Sam wrote his sister-in-law, Mollie Clemens, a conventional poem titled “To Mollie” [ET&S 1: 118].

May, early – Sam wrote a poem, titled, “Lines Suggested by a Reminiscence, and Which You Will Perhaps Understand,” to Ann Virginia Ruffner (b.1838?) [ET&S 1: 120].

May 7 Wednesday – Sam, in Keokuk, wrote a poem “To Jennie,” at the departure of Ann Virginia Ruffner [ET&S 1: 124]. (This is erroneously reported as 1853 in some sources.)

May 20 Tuesday – The steam ferry between Keokuk and Hamilton, Illinois struck a snag and sand up to the guards near the Illinois shore, leaving only its top deck above water. There were no fatalities. Clemens was on board and referred to “the loss of that bridge almost finished my career” in his letter of May 25 to Annie Taylor (Ann Elizabeth Taylor 1840-1916) [MTL 1: 62n1]. Note: no other reference to this event was found, and it is somewhat strange that Sam never referred or embellished the event, as he often did.

May 21 and May 25 Sunday – Sam wrote Annie Taylor a humorous letter. Sam stayed in Keokuk over a year. He enjoyed the companionship of Henry and Mollie’s circle of women friends.

[This first part written on May 21 is lost]

of the hurricane deck is still visible above the water. Here is another “Royal George” —I think I shall have to be a second Cowper, and write her requiem.

Sunday, May 25.

May 24 Saturday – Esther Taylor (“Ete”), Annie and Mary Jane’s twenty-one-year-old sister paid Sam a visit [MTL 1: 62 & n9].

June 10 Tuesday – In Keokuk, Sam wrote his mother, Jane Clemens, and sister Pamela in St.
Louis. Jane was now living with her daughter. See insert, courtesy of MTP: Vassar College Library.

My Dear Mother & Sister:

June 25 Wednesday – Sam inscribed: “Samuel L. Clemens / 1856. / June 25 th , 1856” on a copy of J.L. Comstock’s Elements of Geology (1851).

August 3 Sunday – Sam spent Sunday afternoon with the Taylor girls, and wrote the following Wednesday that he “brought away a big bouquet of Ete’s (Esther Taylor) d——d stinking flowers” [MTL 1: 66]

August 5 Tuesday – Henry Clemens wrote to Sam from St. Louis (his letter is not extant). Sam replied
the same day as follows:

My Dear Brother:

October,  early – Sam walked along the main street of Keokuk in swirling snow, and found a fifty-dollar bill. Astounded, he later recounted, “It  was a fifty-dollar bill—the only one I had ever seen, and the largest assemblage of money I had ever seen in one spot” [Powers, Dangerous 243]. He  advertised it but after five days with no claimant he felt he’d done enough:

“By and by I couldn’t stand it any longer. My  conscience had gotten all that was coming to it. I felt that I must take that  money out of danger” [MTB 111].

October  13 Monday – Sam made a brief stay in St. Louis, staying with his mother,  and sister. He attended the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical  Association Fair. He wrote a sketch of it,  titled “The Great Fair at St. Louis,” signed, “SAM,” which appeared in the  Keokuk Post on Oct. 21 and then in the Saturday Post on Oct. 25 [MTL 1: 69].
 

October  18 Saturday – Still in St. Louis, Sam wrote the first Thomas  Jefferson Snodgrass letter, burlesquing Shakespeare’s Julius  Caesar [Gribben 626]. Sam used  dialect, and grammatical and spelling errors to characterize a country bumpkin  getting the worst of it in the big city. It was a literary strategy that would  come to fruition in many of his future works. Snodgrass was also the last pen  name Sam used prior to Mark Twain, in Nevada, Feb. 1863.

October  19 Sunday – Sam arrived in Keokuk, Iowa (see Oct. 18 entry).

October  21 Tuesday – “The  Great Fair at St. Louis,” signed, “SAM,” appeared in the Keokuk Post [ET&S 1: 378].

October  22 Wednesday ca. – Sam traveled by river packet to Quincy, Illinois [MTL 1: 70].

October  23 to 24 Friday –Sam traveled by train to Chicago and Indianapolis to Cincinnati [MTL 1: 70].  Branch gives on or  about Oct. 24 as the date Sam arrived in Cincinnati [Branch, “Bixby” 2].

October,  late – In Cincinnati Sam found employment as a typesetter for T.  Wrightson and Co., one of the city’s  leading printers. He worked there into the next spring, some six months [MTL 1: 70]. Sam’s time in Cincinnati is  one of the “least documented of his life…” [MT Encyclopedia, Poole 145] but  he did write two more Snodgrass letters while there. Sam lived in a  boarding house. Long hours at work plus discussions with other boarders didn’t  allow Sam much time for writing.

November  1 Saturday – Sam’s first Snodgrass letter dated Oct. 18from  St. Louis titled, CORRESPONDENCE  ran in the Keokuk Saturday Post.

November 14 Friday – Sam dated his second Snodgrass   letter from Cincinnati [MT Encyclopedia, Abshire 694].

November  18 Tuesday – An  untitled sketch, dated Nov. 8 and signed “L,” about a Cincinnati boarding house ran in the Keokuk Post.  It is attributed to Clemens [ET&S 1: 382; MTL 1:  70]. Britton examines the piece and makes a case for it being Sam’s, and  Mcfarlane being autobiographical rather than fictitious [16- 17]. Note: Britton mistakenly  writes the sketch was published on Nov. 8, but it was dated Nov 8   and published Nov. 18.

November  29 Saturday – The second Snodgrass letter dated Nov. 14, SNODGRASS’ RIDE ON THE RAILROAD ran in the  Keokuk Post [MT Encyclopedia, Abshire 694; Camfield, bibliog.].