Born and educated in New York City, Thomas Fitch (1838–1923) had been a newspaper editor in Milwaukee, and a newspaper editor, lawyer, and state assemblyman in California before moving to Virginia City in June 1863. That year he became an editor of the Virginia City Union. Fitch later recalled:

In February of the following year Fitch published a prospectus for his new Sunday literary paper, the Weekly Occidental, and asked Clemens to contribute, which elicited this letter in response. In his 1915 article, Fitch wrote that Clemens “proved a true prophet. The Occidental died after its third issue, from lack of nutriment.” In Roughing It, Clemens recalled the paper as “a feeble, struggling, stupid journal” that folded after four issues (chapter 51). In fact, the Occidental seems to have issued at least six times, from 6 March through 10 April 1864 (Rogers 1957, 365–70; “Sheriff’s Sale,” Virginia City Territorial Enterprise of unknown date, reprinting the Weekly Occidental of 10 Apr 1864, PH in CU-MARK, courtesy of Michael H. Marleau). From 1 July to 8 August 1864, Fitch was copublisher of the Virginia City Evening Washoe Herald, a daily crusading reform paper. Famed for his powers as an orator, Fitch served as Washoe County district attorney (1865–66) and as a Republican congressman from Nevada (1869–71) (BDAC, 891; Angel 1881, 87–88; Lingenfelter and Gash, 257–58).