(James Anthony, Henry W. Larkin, and Paul Morrill)
13 August 1866 • San Francisco, Calif. (MS facsimile, draft telegram: Gates, UCCL 10676)
PRIVATEⒶemendation.
Arrived in Smyrniote this afternoon.—Ⓐemendationgo up to Sacramento tomorrow.
Honolulu Items.—Through a note just received from our correspondent at Honolulu, dated July 19, we learn that the aged father of the reigning King of the Hawaiian Islands, and Mrs. Rooke, the mother of Queen Emma, were both lying at the point of death. H. H. the Governess of Hawaii was also very ill, perhaps even dangerously so. The
The Hawaiian Legislature was still in session.
The Smyrniote & the Comet both sailed for San Francisco of on the 19th of July.1explanatory note
The Sacramento Union did not publish this news bulletin. It can be updated, however, as follows: Mataio Kekuanaoa (1791–1868)—father of Kamehameha V—recovered, but not until late September; Grace Kamaikui Young Rooke—foster mother of Kamehameha IV’s widow, Emma Naea Rooke (1836–85)—died on 26 July; Princess Ruth Keelikolani (1826–83)—daughter of Mataio Kekuanaoa, half-sister of Kamehameha V, and governess of the island of Hawaii since 1855—although rumored to be seriously ill, had merely sprained her ankle (Korn, 298–99, 302–4; Honolulu Pacific Commercial Advertiser: “Reports having been in circulation . . .” and “Her excellency the Governess of Hawaii . . .,” 7 July 66, 2; “Mrs. Rooke . . .,” 28 July 66, 2; “Notes of the Week,” 21 July 66, 3, 28 July 66, 3, 29 Sept 66, 3). On the back of the sheet on which he composed this telegram and bulletin, Clemens later in August drafted a portion of “How, for Instance?”—a sketch satirizing accident insurance which appeared in the New York Weekly Review on 29 September.
The MS is a folder of which one page contains the draft telegram and the other three pages contain a draft of part of Clemens’s sketch “How, For Instance?” first published in the New York Weekly Review (29 Sept 66, 1).
MS facsimile, draft telegram; MS in the collection of Robert A. Gates.
L1 , 356.
Mr. Gates provided a photograph of the MS to the Mark Twain Papers in 1984. The recipients’ copy of the telegram is not known to survive.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.