Trouble Brewed – Fortune Teller – Orion Commissioned Secretary of Nevada Terr. - River Traffic Closed – Marion Ranger Fun – St. Jo Westward; Roughing It to Carson Mine Feet - Speculation – Aurora – Conflagration on Lake Tahoe - Humboldt and Mining Fever – “a small rude cabin” at Unionville

  • January 7, 1861

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    January 7 Monday – Brother Orion wrote Sam from Memphis. His letter of introduction to Samuel Taylor Glover (1813-1884) was intended to obtain a letter of introduction to Edward Bates (1793-1869), Lincoln’s attorney general. Orion hoped to get a government position to provide his family with a stable income and to pay debts We had a had a hearty laugh, as well as some of our acquaintances of the feminine gender (in my absence) heads of families, over your last letter. … I am greatly obliged to you for the Tri-weekly Republican till 1 st next April.

  • January 21, 1861

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    January 21 Monday to March 30, 1861 – Ten letters signed by Quintus Curtius Snodgrass were published on various dates in the New Orleans Daily Crescent. Until 1964, most scholars attributed these letters to Sam. Alan Bates then presented an article showing that the dates penned and published would have precluded them from being Sam’s [Bates 31-7]. Could Sam have assigned them dates different than the day of composition? Or, are they, as Bates claims, “the tedious productions of an obscure newspaper reporter”?

  • February 18, 1861

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    February 18 Monday – The Alonzo Child left for St. Louis. The committee on petitions for the Polar Star Lodge Number Seventy-nine of St. Louis reported favorably on Sam’s petition for membership. Sam was recommended by John M. Leavenworth (b.1835?) brother of Zeb, and John T. “Tom” Moore. Sam Clemens was duly elected to receive the Masonic first degree [Jones 364; Strong 88].
    Note: Moore was a “mud clerk” on the Roe; see July 6, 1859 and Feb. 18, 1861; also letter from Karl Gerhardt of May 5, 1909 mentioning Moore.

  • February 27, 1861

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    February 27 Wednesday – The Alonzo Child left for New Orleans. Sam took his mother, cousin Ella Creel (b. 1840), and Miss Castle of St. Louis on a pleasure trip from St. Louis with 20 or 30 other couples to New Orleans aboard the Alonzo Child [MTL 1: 118n4].

  • March 7, 1861

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    March 7 Thursday – The likely day that Sam took his mother and the girls around New Orleans in a carriage and rode out to Lake Pontchartrain “in the cars.” See Mar. 18 entry, letter to Orion.

  • March 18, 1861

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    March 18 Monday – Sam was in St. Louis with his mother, Jane Clemens, and sister, Pamela. He wrote Orion on this date about visiting a museum and seeing Frederic E. Church’s oil painting, Heart of the Andes. He also wrote of his mother’s disapproval of a dance, the Schottische (like the Polka) that he, his sister, and Miss Castle took part of [MTL 1: 116]. Note: The source for this letter in the printed volume was Paine’s text; Here are transcribed parts of the letter that have surfaced since, from MTP’s “drop-in” letter file, as follows:

  • March 20, 1861

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    March 20 Wednesday – The Alonzo Child left for New Orleans. According to records accessed at the Department of Commerce, Steamboat Inspection Service in St. Louis in 1925, Sam’s pilot license, initially issued Apr. 9, 1859 was renewed a second time on this day [The Twainian, January 1940].

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