Chapter III: Letters 1861-62. on the Frontier. Mining Adventures. Journalistic (2)

P. S.--Monday--Ratio and I have bought one-half of a segregated claim in the original “Flyaway,” for $100--$50 down. We haven't a cent in the house. We two will work the ledge, and have full control, and pay all expenses. If you can spare $100 conveniently, let me have it--or $50, anyhow, considering that I own one fourth of this, it is of course more valuable than one 1/7 of the “Mountain House,” although not so rich....

There is too much of a sameness in the letters of this period to use
all of them. There are always new claims, and work done, apparently
without system or continuance, hoping to uncover sudden boundless
affluence.

In the next letter and the one following it we get a hint of an
episode, or rather of two incidents which he combined into an
episode in Roughing It. The story as told in that book is an
account of what might have happened, rather than history. There was
never really any money in the “blind lead” of the Wide West claim,
except that which was sunk in it by unfortunate investors. Only
extracts from these letters are given. The other portions are
irrelevant and of slight value.

Extract from a letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

1862.

Two or three of the old “Salina” company entered our hole on the Monitor yesterday morning, before our men got there, and took possession, armed with revolvers. And according to the d---d laws of this forever d---d country, nothing but the District Court (and there ain't any) can touch the matter, unless it assumes the shape of an infernal humbug which they call “forcible entry and detainer,” and in order to bring that about, you must compel the jumpers to use personal violence toward you! We went up and demanded possession, and they refused. Said they were in the hole, armed and meant to die for it, if necessary.

I got in with them, and again demanded possession. They said I might stay in it as long as I pleased, and work but they would do the same. I asked one of our company to take my place in the hole, while I went to consult a lawyer. He did so. The lawyer said it was no go. They must offer some “force.”

Our boys will try to be there first in the morning--in which case they may get possession and keep it. Now you understand the shooting scrape in which Gebhart was killed the other day. The Clemens Company--all of us--hate to resort to arms in this matter, and it will not be done until it becomes a forced hand--but I think that will be the end of it, never-the-less.

The mine relocated in this letter was not the “Wide West,” but it
furnished the proper incident. The only mention of the “Wide West”
is found in a letter written in July.

Extract from a letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City: 1862

If I do not forget it, I will send you, per next mail, a pinch of decom. (decomposed rock) which I pinched with thumb and finger from “Wide West” ledge awhile ago. Raish and I have secured 200 out of a 400 ft. in it, which perhaps (the ledge, I mean) is a spur from the W. W.--our shaft is about 100 ft. from the W. W. shaft. In order to get in, we agreed to sink 30 ft. We have sub-let to another man for 50 ft., and we pay for powder and sharpening tools.

The “Wide West” claim was forfeited, but there is no evidence to
show that Clemens and his partners were ever, except in fiction,
“millionaires for ten days.” The background, the local color, and
the possibilities are all real enough, but Mark Twain's aim in this,
as in most of his other reminiscent writing, was to arrange and
adapt his facts to the needs of a good story.

The letters of this summer (1862) most of them bear evidence of
waning confidence in mining as a source of fortune--the miner has
now little faith in his own judgment, and none at all in that of his
brother, who was without practical experience.

Letter to Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, Thursday.

MY DEAR BRO.,--Yours of the 17th, per express, just received. Part of it pleased me exceedingly, and part of it didn't. Concerning the letter, for instance: You have PROMISED me that you would leave all mining matters, and everything involving an outlay of money, in my hands.

Sending a man fooling around the country after ledges, for God's sake! when there are hundreds of feet of them under my nose here, begging for owners, free of charge. I don't want any more feet, and I won't touch another foot--so you see, Orion, as far as any ledges of Perry's are concerned, (or any other except what I examine first with my own eyes,) I freely yield my right to share ownership with you.

The balance of your letter, I say, pleases me exceedingly. Especially that about the H. and D. being worth from $30 to $50 in Cal. It pleases me because, if the ledges prove to be worthless, it will be a pleasant reflection to know that others were beaten worse than ourselves. Raish sold a man 30 feet, yesterday, at $20 a foot, although I was present at the sale, and told the man the ground wasn't worth a d---n. He said he had been hankering after a few feet in the H. and D. for a long time, and he had got them at last, and he couldn't help thinking he had secured a good thing. We went and looked at the ledges, and both of them acknowledged that there was nothing in them but good “indications.” Yet the owners in the H. and D. will part with anything else sooner than with feet in these ledges. Well, the work goes slowly--very slowly on, in the tunnel, and we'll strike it some day. But--if we “strike it rich,”--I've lost my guess, that's all. I expect that the way it got so high in Cal. was, that Raish's brother, over there was offered $750.00 for 20 feet of it, and he refused.....

Couldn't go on the hill today. It snowed. It always snows here, I expect.

Don't you suppose they have pretty much quit writing, at home?

When you receive your next 1/4 yr's salary, don't send any of it here until after you have told me you have got it. Remember this. I am afraid of that H. and D.

They have struck the ledge in the Live Yankee tunnel, and I told the President, Mr. Allen, that it wasn't as good as the croppings. He said that was true enough, but they would hang to it until it did prove rich. He is much of a gentleman, that man Allen.

And ask Gaslerie why the devil he don't send along my commission as Deputy Sheriff. The fact of my being in California, and out of his country, wouldn't amount to a d---n with me, in the performance of my official duties.

I have nothing to report, at present, except that I shall find out all I want to know about this locality before I leave it.

How do the Records pay?

Yr. Bro.
SAM.

In one of the foregoing letters--the one dated May 11 there is a
reference to the writer's “Enterprise Letters.” Sometimes, during
idle days in the camp, the miner had followed old literary impulses
and written an occasional burlesque sketch, which he had signed
“Josh,” and sent to the Territorial Enterprise, at Virginia City.
--[One contribution was sent to a Keokuk paper, The Gate City, and a
letter written by Mrs. Jane Clemens at the time would indicate that
Mark Twain's mother did not always approve of her son's literary
efforts. She hopes that he will do better, and some time write
something “that his kin will be proud of.”]--The rough, vigorous
humor of these had attracted some attention, and Orion, pleased with
any measure of success that might come to his brother, had allowed
the authorship of them to become known. When, in July, the
financial situation became desperate, the Esmeralda miner was moved
to turn to literature for relief. But we will let him present the
situation himself.

To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, July 23d, 1862.

MY DEAR BRO.,--No, I don't own a foot in the “Johnson” ledge--I will tell the story some day in a more intelligible manner than Tom has told it. You needn't take the trouble to deny Tom's version, though. I own 25 feet (1-16) of the 1st east ex. on it--and Johnson himself has contracted to find the ledge for 100 feet. Contract signed yesterday. But as the ledge will be difficult to find he is allowed six months to find it in. An eighteenth of the Ophir was a fortune to John D. Winters--and the Ophir can't beat the Johnson any.....

My debts are greater than I thought for; I bought $25 worth of clothing, and sent $25 to Higbie, in the cement diggings. I owe about $45 or $50, and have got about $45 in my pocket. But how in the h--l I am going to live on something over $100 until October or November, is singular. The fact is, I must have something to do, and that shortly, too.....

Now write to the Sacramento Union folks, or to Marsh, and tell them I'll write as many letters a week as they want, for $10 a week--my board must be paid. Tell them I have corresponded with the N. Orleans Crescent, and other papers--and the Enterprise. California is full of people who have interests here, and it's d---d seldom they hear from this country. I can't write a specimen letter--now, at any rate--I'd rather undertake to write a Greek poem. Tell 'em the mail and express leave three times a week, and it costs from 25 to 50 cents to send letters by the blasted express. If they want letters from here, who'll run from morning till night collecting materials cheaper. I'll write a short letter twice a week, for the present, for the “Age,” for $5 per week. Now it has been a long time since I couldn't make my own living, and it shall be a long time before I loaf another year.....

If I get the other 25 feet in the Johnson ex., I shan't care a d---n. I'll be willing to curse awhile and wait. And if I can't move the bowels of those hills this fall, I will come up and clerk for you until I get money enough to go over the mountains for the winter.

Yr. Bro.
SAM.

The Territorial Enterprise at Virginia City was at this time owned
by Joseph T. Goodman, who had bought it on the eve of the great
Comstock silver-mining boom, and from a struggling, starving sheet
had converted it into one of the most important--certainly the most
picturesque-papers on the coast. The sketches which the Esmeralda
miner had written over the name of “Josh” fitted into it exactly,
and when a young man named Barstow, in the business office, urged
Goodman to invite “Josh” to join their staff, the Enterprise owner
readily fell in with the idea. Among a lot of mining matters of no
special interest, Clemens, July 30th, wrote his brother: “Barstow
has offered me the post as local reporter for the Enterprise at $25
a week, and I have written him that I will let him know next mail,
if possible.”

In Roughing It we are told that the miner eagerly accepted the
proposition to come to Virginia City, but the letters tell a
different story. Mark Twain was never one to abandon any
undertaking easily. His unwillingness to surrender in a lost cause
would cost him more than one fortune in the years to come. A week
following the date of the foregoing he was still undecided.

To Orion Clemens, in Carson City:

ESMERALDA, Aug. 7, 1862.

MY DEAR BRO,--Barstow wrote that if I wanted the place I could have it. I wrote him that I guessed I would take it, and asked him how long before I must come up there. I have not heard from him since.

Now, I shall leave at mid-night tonight, alone and on foot for a walk of 60 or 70 miles through a totally uninhabited country, and it is barely possible that mail facilities may prove infernally “slow” during the few weeks I expect to spend out there. But do you write Barstow that I have left here for a week or so, and in case he should want me he must write me here, or let me know through you.

The Contractors say they will strike the Fresno next week. After fooling with those assayers a week, they concluded not to buy “Mr. Flower” at $50, although they would have given five times the sum for it four months ago. So I have made out a deed for one half of all Johnny's ground and acknowledged and left in judge F. K. Becktel's hands, and if judge Turner wants it he must write to Becktel and pay him his Notary fee of $1.50. I would have paid that fee myself, but I want money now as I leave town tonight. However, if you think it isn't right, you can pay the fee to judge Turner yourself.

Hang to your money now. I may want some when I get back.....

See that you keep out of debt--to anybody. Bully for B.! Write him that I would write him myself, but I am to take a walk tonight and haven't time. Tell him to bring his family out with him. He can rely upon what I say--and I say the land has lost its ancient desolate appearance; the rose and the oleander have taken the place of the departed sage-bush; a rich black loam, garnished with moss, and flowers, and the greenest of grass, smiles to Heaven from the vanished sand-plains; the “endless snows” have all disappeared, and in their stead, or to repay us for their loss, the mountains rear their billowy heads aloft, crowned with a fadeless and eternal verdure; birds, and fountains, and trees-tropical bees--everywhere!--and the poet dreamt of Nevada when he wrote:

“and Sharon waves, in solemn praise,
Her silent groves of palm.”

and today the royal Raven listens in a dreamy stupor to the songs of the thrush and the nightingale and the canary--and shudders when the gaudy-plumaged birds of the distant South sweep by him to the orange groves of Carson. Tell him he wouldn't recognize the d--d country. He should bring his family by all means.

I intended to write home, but I haven't done it.

Yr. Bro.
SAM.

In this letter we realize that he had gone into the wilderness to
reflect--to get a perspective on the situation. He was a great
walker in those days, and sometimes with Higbie, sometimes alone,
made long excursions. One such is recorded in Roughing It, the trip
to Mono Lake. We have no means of knowing where his seventy-mile
tour led him now, but it is clear that he still had not reached a
decision on his return. Indeed, we gather that he is inclined to
keep up the battle among the barren Esmeralda hills.

Last mining letter; written to Mrs. Moffett, in St. Louis:

ESMERALDA, CAL., Aug. 15, 1862.

MY DEAR SISTER,-I mailed a letter to you and Ma this morning, but since then I have received yours to Orion and me. Therefore, I must answer right away, else I may leave town without doing it at all. What in thunder are pilot's wages to me? which question, I beg humbly to observe, is of a general nature, and not discharged particularly at you. But it is singular, isn't it, that such a matter should interest Orion, when it is of no earthly consequence to me? I never have once thought of returning home to go on the river again, and I never expect to do any more piloting at any price. My livelihood must be made in this country--and if I have to wait longer than I expected, let it be so--I have no fear of failure. You know I have extravagant hopes, for Orion tells you everything which he ought to keep to himself--but it's his nature to do that sort of thing, and I let him alone. I did think for awhile of going home this fall--but when I found that that was and had been the cherished intention and the darling aspiration every year, of these old care-worn Californians for twelve weary years--I felt a little uncomfortable, but I stole a march on Disappointment and said I would not go home this fall. I will spend the winter in San Francisco, if possible. Do not tell any one that I had any idea of piloting again at present--for it is all a mistake. This country suits me, and--it shall suit me, whether or no....

Dan Twing and I and Dan's dog, “cabin” together--and will continue to do so for awhile--until I leave for--

The mansion is 10x12, with a “domestic” roof. Yesterday it rained--the first shower for five months. “Domestic,” it appears to me, is not water-proof. We went outside to keep from getting wet. Dan makes the bed when it is his turn to do it--and when it is my turn, I don't, you know. The dog is not a good hunter, and he isn't worth shucks to watch--but he scratches up the dirt floor of the cabin, and catches flies, and makes himself generally useful in the way of washing dishes. Dan gets up first in the morning and makes a fire--and I get up last and sit by it, while he cooks breakfast. We have a cold lunch at noon, and I cook supper--very much against my will. However, one must have one good meal a day, and if I were to live on Dan's abominable cookery, I should lose my appetite, you know. Dan attended Dr. Chorpenning's funeral yesterday, and he felt as though he ought to wear a white shirt--and we had a jolly good time finding such an article. We turned over all our traps, and he found one at last--but I shall always think it was suffering from yellow fever. He also found an old black coat, greasy, and wrinkled to that degree that it appeared to have been quilted at some time or other. In this gorgeous costume he attended the funeral. And when he returned, his own dog drove him away from the cabin, not recognizing him. This is true.

You would not like to live in a country where flour was $40 a barrel? Very well; then, I suppose you would not like to live here, where flour was $100 a barrel when I first came here. And shortly afterwards, it couldn't be had at any price--and for one month the people lived on barley, beans and beef--and nothing beside. Oh, no--we didn't luxuriate then! Perhaps not. But we said wise and severe things about the vanity and wickedness of high living. We preached our doctrine and practised it. Which course I respectfully recommend to the clergymen of St. Louis.

Where is Beack Jolly?--[a pilot]--and Bixby?

Your Brother
SAM.