5 August 1863 • Virginia City, Nev. Terr. (MS, damage emended: CU-MARK, UCCL 00070)
No. 11—$20 enclosed
I got burned out about ten days ago—saved nothing but the clothes I had on—lost a couple of handsome suits that I had made in San Francisco.1explanatory note The fire resulted in no benefit to me except that Mr Ⓐemendation Judge Ferris’ wife offered me the use of the spare one of Ⓐemendationthe spare chambers in her house until the Superintendent of the Ophir, who occupies it, returns from San Francisco.2explanatory note Therefore, I shall live in some style for a while, at any rate, free of charge, in roomsⒶemendation worth $200 or $250 a month, I guess. I board at the Collins House.3explanatory note They only charge me $10 a week there—so much for being a reporter. Mrs. Ferris (and everybody else,) has gone to Lake Bigler, & I shall go myself if I can get any one to report for me. However, I didn’t lose so very much by the fire. A man whom I never saw before, gave me some “feet” as I went down town, & I sold the batch for $200 & fitted me myself Ⓐemendationout again half as good as new. The unknown scoundrel couldn’t have done me a favor of the kind n when ⒶemendationI needed it more.
Orion is in town. I saw him at the Theatre to-night. He says he has a letter from home at Carson.
He sent me your last the other day, with a fearful lecture to me on the subject of dissipation.,Ⓐemendation from himself. As I don’t dissipate, & never expect to, & am man enough to have a good character & keep it, I didn’t take the trouble to answer it. He will learn after a while, perhaps, that I am not an infant, that I know the value of a good name as well as he does, & stop writing such childish nonsense to me.
Now, I don’t wo really Ⓐemendationwork more than two hours a day, but then I am busy all the time, gadding about, you know, & consequently I don’t expect to write you very often. You can hear from me by the paper, though. When I was in San Francisco I believe they thought I wasn’t coming back & any Ⓐemendationmore, & stopped your paper—but I started it again pretty suddenly when I returned. I Ⓐemendationam glad to hear you are all improving in health. I wish you would stay a withⒶemendation Dr Gross.4explanatory note
The fire at the White House occurred at about 11:00 a.m. on 26 July and was thought to be “the work of an incendiary” (“Large Conflagration—Loss About $30,000,” Virginia City Evening Bulletin, 27 July 63, 3). The Virginia City Union of 28 July carried an account of the fire probably written by Clemens’s fellow resident Clement T. Rice. It included the following information, which, the paper noted, was “supposed to be a ‘goak’”: “Sam. Clemens and W. M. Gillespie lost all their clothing, valued at about $15, besides an immense amount of ‘wild cat,’ variously estimated to be worth from ten cents to two hundred thousand dollars” (Rice 1863, 2). Clemens’s own account of his narrow escape appeared in the San Francisco Morning Call on 30 July:
I discovered that the room under mine was on fire, gave the alarm, and went down to see how extensive it was likely to be. . . . I came near not escaping from the house at all. I started to the door with my trunk, but I couldn’t stand the smoke, wherefore I abandoned that valuable piece of furniture in the hall, and returned and jumped out at the window. . . . Now do you know that trunk was utterly consumed, together with its contents, consisting of a pair of socks, a package of love-letters, and $300,000 worth of “wildcat” stocks? Yes, Sir, it was; and I am a bankrupt community. Plug hat, numerous sets of complete harness—all broadcloth—lost—eternally lost. However, the articles were borrowed, as a general thing. I don’t mind losing them. (ET&S1 , 261)
Leonard W. Ferris and his wife lived on B Street not far from the White House. Ferris had been appointed probate judge of Storey County in December 1861 and was elected to the same position in September 1863. Edward B. Wilder was superintendent of the Ophir mine. Clemens had talked with him in July while visiting the Ophir during a series of cave-ins, afterward describing them in the San Francisco Morning Call (SLC 1863, 1, and SLC 1863, 1). He may be referring, however, to the company’s general superintendent, who supervised the Ophir mine and also the mill and reduction works, Walter W. Palmer. Clemens mentioned Palmer in the Morning Call (SLC 1864, 3, and SLC 1864, 1), and later alluded to him in chapter 45 of Roughing It (Kelly 1863, 130–31, 210, 269, 293; Angel, 607).
The Collins House, owned by John A. Collins, was Virginia City’s newest hotel. On opening night, 8 July 1863, Collins gave a banquet attended by prominent citizens. The Evening Bulletin reported that after the dinner “came the champagne, the wisdom and the wit. . . . Perhaps the speech of the evening was made by Sam. Clemens. Those not familiar with this young man, do not know the depths of grave tenderness in his nature. He almost brought the house to tears by his touching simple pathos” (“Opening of the Collins House,” Virginia City Evening Bulletin, 9 July 63, 3).
Unidentified.
MS, Mark Twain Papers, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (CU-MARK); damage emended. A photographic facsimile of the MS is on pp. 428–29. The MS consists of a folder of white onionskin, 8 5/16 by 10 9/16 inches (21.2 by 26.9 cm), watermarked overall in a small grid pattern. In the upper right corner the folder is blind embossed with a crown above a shield within which a viking ship sails beneath a pattern of stars. The folder is inscribed on the first and fourth sides only in black ink, now somewhat faded to brown. The MS is reproduced in Photographs and Manuscript Facsimilesclick to open link.
L1 , 261–263.
probably Moffett Collection; see p. 462.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.