12 August 1864
This brief sketch appeared unsigned in the San Francisco Morning Call, but Clemens' authorship is established by a letter he wrote to Orion and Mollie Clemens shortly after the piece appeared: “I have got Dr Bellows stuck after my local items. He says he never fails to read them—said he went into ‘convulsions of laughter’ over the account of ‘What a Sky-Rocket Did.’ ” Clemens went on to tell an anecdote about an “old fellow down at San José, who is perfectly impervious to humor” and “takes everything he finds in a newspaper in dead earnest.” Someone showed this gentleman “What a Sky-Rocket Did”:
He read the article . . . with oppressive solemnity until he came to where the neighbors were expecting the fellow that went up with the rocket, & moved their families out of his way, & then he slammed the paper on the floor & rose up & angrily confronted the man—& says he, with measureless scorn in his tones: “Was expect'n of him down! They druther he'd fall in the alley! Moved ther families out to give him a show! Now look-a-here, my friend, you may go on & believe that, if you think you can stand it, but you'll excuse me. I just think it's a God dam lie!”1
Clemens' obvious delight in this reaction suggests that “What a Sky-Rocket Did” was written in very much the same spirit that produced “A Petrified Man” (no. 28) and “A Bloody Massacre near Carson” (no. 66). However, the exact point of this very much milder hoax—obviously based on the facts—is now somewhat obscure. It seems that Clemens [begin page 35] felt he had scored against Captain Hinckley, who is mentioned so casually that, like G. T. Sewall in “A Petrified Man,” he may be the primary target of the satire. William Crawley Hinckley was a former sea captain who had grown wealthy through trade and real-estate investments in San Francisco. For the four years prior to July 1864 he had been a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors, whose weekly meetings Clemens covered for the Call. There the conservative-minded Hinckley seems to have looked after the interests of property owners, and this fact may explain Clemens' relish in this “stretcher,” which surreptitiously mocks the wealthy owner of poorly constructed tenement property.2
Clemens to Orion and Mollie Clemens, 14 August 1864, CL1 , letter 89. The Reverend Henry W. Bellows was founder and president of the United States Sanitary Commission, and filled the pulpit of the First Unitarian Church from March to September 1864 following the death of Thomas Starr King. For his friendship with Clemens, see CofC , pp. 61–62, 66–68, 256–258.
Night before last, a stick six or seven feet long, attached to an exploded rocket of large size, came crashing down through the zinc roof of a tenement in Milton Place, Bush street, between Dupont and Kearny, passed through a cloth ceiling, and fetched up on the floor alongside of a gentleman's bed, with a smash like the disruption of a china shop. We have been told by a person with whom we are not acquainted, and of whose reliability we have now no opportunity of satisfying ourselves, as he has gone to his residence, which is situated on the San José road at some distance from the city, that when the rocket tore up the splinters around the bed, the gentleman got up. The person also saidⒶemendation that he went out—adding after some deliberation, and with the air of a man who has made up his mind that what he is about to say can be substantiatedⒶemendation if necessary, that “he went out quick.” This person also said that after the gentleman went out quick, he ran—and then with a great show of disinterestedness, he ventured upon the conjecture that he was running yet. He hastened to modify this rash conjecture, however, by observing that he had no particular reason for suspecting that the gentleman was runningⒶemendation yet—it was only a notion of his, and just flashed on him, like. He then hitched up his team, which he observed parenthetically that he wished they belonged to him, but they didn't, and immediately drove away in the direction of his country seat. The tenement is there yet, though, with the hole through the zinc roof. The tenement is [begin page 37] the property of ex-Supervisor Hinckley, and some of the best educated men in the city consider that the hole is also, because it is on his premises. It is a very good hole. If it could be taken from the roof just in the shape it is now, it would be a nice thing to show at the Mechanics' Fair; any man who would make a pun under circumstances like these, and suggest that it be turned over to the Christian Commission FairⒺexplanatory note on account of its holy nature, might think himself smartⒶemendation, but would the people—the plodding, thinking, intelligent masses—would they respect him? Far be it. Doubtless. What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.Ⓔexplanatory note The foregoing facts are written to prepare the reader for the announcement that the stick, with the same exploded rocket attached, may be seen at the hall of the Board of Supervisors. It has remained there to this day. The man who set it off, and hung on to it, and went up with it, has not come down yet. The people who live in Milton Place are expecting him, all the time. They have moved their families, and got out of the way, so as to give him a good show when he drops. They have said, but without insisting on it, that if it would be all the same to him, they would rather he would fall in the alley. This would mash him up a good deal, likely, and scatter him around some, but they think they could scrape him up and hold an inquest on him, and inform his parents. The Board of Supervisors will probably pass an ordinance directing that missiles of the dangerous nature of rockets shall henceforth be fired in the direction of the Bay, so as to guard against accidents to life and property.
The first printing in the San Francisco Morning Call for 12 August 1864 (p. 1) is copy-text. Copy: PH from Bancroft. There are no textual notes.