Autobiography of Mark Twain (166 page)

439.11 Reverend Charley Stowe’s little boy] Charles Edward Stowe’s son was author and editor Lyman Beecher Stowe (1880–1963) (“Charles E. Stowe” in “Hartford Residents” 1974; “Lyman Beecher Stowe Dead,” New York
Times
, 26 Sept 1963, 35).

439.27 ROCKEFELLER, JR., ON WEALTH] Clemens had a clipping of this article, from the New York
Times
of 26 March 1906, pasted into the typescript of his dictation.

440.22–23 I missed his . . . Bible Class last Thursday night] See the Autobiographical Dictation of 20 March 1906.

440.29 BABY ADVICE IN A CAR] Clemens had a clipping of this article, from the New York
Times
of 26 March 1906, pasted into the typescript of his dictation.

442.1–16 Day before yesterday . . . that reporter . . . did his work well] This “happy literary” effort has not been identified. The incident occurred on the morning of 23 March 1906, as confirmed by a detailed account—not the one that Clemens saw, however—that appeared on the same day in the New York
Evening Sun
(“A Girl’s Despair,” 6), and by brief reports on the following day in the New York
Herald
(“No Finery, Takes Poison,” 5) and the New York
Tribune
(“City News in Brief,” 10).

442.20 what the Vanderbilts are doing] The activities and pastimes of the descendants of financier and railroad promoter Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877) and their families, were, as Clemens says, regular grist for the news and society columns.

442.21–22 John D. Rockefeller . . . testify about alleged Standard Oil iniquities] In March 1906 Rockefeller was in retreat at his country estate in Lakewood, New Jersey, to avoid a New York subpoena requiring his testimony in an ongoing investigation of Standard Oil. At one point, in response to inquiries about Rockefeller’s whereabouts, his family physician responded, “Mr. Rockefeller is on Mars. That’s a planet, you know, near Jupiter. He’s up there playing golf. One might have heard the whacks quite plainly. One of the golf balls went clear over to Jupiter” (New York
Times:
numerous articles, 9–25 Mar 1906, especially “Rockefeller on Mars,” 11 Mar 1906, 1).

442.23 Mr. Carnegie’s movements and sayings] Clemens’s friend Andrew Carnegie was much in the news at this time for his charitable works, and especially for his funding of a Simplified Spelling Board, whose membership included Clemens and was committed to controversial orthographic reform (New York
Times:
numerous articles, 12–26 Mar 1906; Clemens discusses Carnegie and simplified spelling in AD, 10 Dec 1907).

442.30–31 they got married and went under cover and got quiet] Alice Lee Roosevelt (1884–1980), the oldest of Theodore Roosevelt’s six children, married Nicholas Longworth (1869–1931), Republican congressman from Ohio (1903–13, 1915–31), on 17 February 1906 in an elaborate White House wedding (“Alice Roosevelt Longworth Dies; She Reigned in Capital 80 Years,” New York
Times
, 21 Feb 1980, 1). The official announcement of the wedding that Clemens received from the White House survives in the Mark Twain Papers. On the back of it Isabel Lyon wrote: “We ought to drop them a note & say we’d heard it.” No such note has been discovered.

443.4 The Swangos] Clemens had a clipping of this article, from the New York
Times
of 26 March 1906, pasted into the typescript of his dictation.

443.22 CAPT. E. L. MARSH] Clemens had a clipping of this unidentified article pasted into the typescript of his dictation; the wording suggests that it was from an Elmira newspaper (not a Des Moines newspaper, as claimed at 444.1). It may have been sent either by Charles J. Langdon, Clemens’s brother-in-law, or by another member of the Langdon family.

443.41 General Charles J. Langdon] Langdon’s title derived from his 1880 service as commissary general on the New York gubernatorial staff (Towner 1892, 615).

444.4–7 in his Company of the Second Iowa Infantry was Dick Higham . . . in my brother’s small printing-office in Keokuk] On 4 May 1861 Marsh enlisted as a corporal in Company D of the Second Regiment of the Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and Higham (1839–62) enlisted as a private in Company A. Marsh rose to the rank of captain before his resignation on 23 May 1864 (Guy E. Logan 2009; Youngquist 2001). In 1856 Higham had been an apprentice in the Ben Franklin Book and Job Office, which Orion Clemens owned while living in Keokuk, Iowa, from June 1855 until June 1857. Both Samuel Clemens and Henry Clemens worked for Orion as well (
L1:
link note following 5 Mar 1855 to the Muscatine
Tri-Weekly Journal
, 58–59; 10 June 1856 to JLC and PAM, 63, 65 n. 3; 5 Aug 1856 to HC, 67, 69 n. 13; 9 Mar 1858 to OC and MEC, 79 n. 11; 2 Apr 1862 to JLC, 184 n. 6).

444.14–24 Second Iowa . . . Dick fell with a bullet . . . furled in disgrace] The Second Regiment of the Iowa Volunteer Infantry gave important service both before and after the engagement at Fort Donelson, in Tennessee, its first great battle, where it distinguished itself as “the bravest of the brave” and was given “the honor of leading the column” that entered the conquered stronghold (Guy E. Logan 2009). The regiment had been disgraced by general order for having failed to prevent vandals from stealing taxidermic specimens from McDowell College in St. Louis, which was being used as a prison. Higham died at Fort Donelson, on 16 February 1862. After learning of his death, Clemens, in a letter from Carson City, recalled the prankish “musket drill” he put Higham through in the Ben Franklin Book and Job Office in Keokuk (2 Apr 1862 to JLC,
L1
, 181–82; Ingersoll 1866, 36–37).

445.4–13 my ancient silver-mining comrade, Calvin H. Higbie . . . Captain John Nye . . . too late to save our fortune from the jumpers] Higbie (1831?–1914) was Clemens’s cabinmate for a time in 1862 in Aurora. He not only figures in chapters 37 through 42 of
Roughing It
, including the “blind lead” episode and the hunt for “the marvelous Whiteman cement mine,” but was the “Honest Man . . . Genial Comrade, and . . . Steadfast Friend” to whom the book was dedicated (
RI 1993
, 637). John Nye, the brother of Nevada Territorial Governor James W. Nye, was a mining, timber, and railroad entrepreneur in Nevada in 1861–62, when Clemens first knew him, and then for many years was a San Francisco real estate agent. He appears in chapters 35 and 41 of
Roughing It
, in the latter of which Clemens reported nursing him through nine days of “spasmodic rheumatism” (
RI 1993
, 644).

445.20 Greenville, Plumas co. California] Higbie’s letter and the letter from Miner that follows were transcribed into this dictation from Higbie’s original manuscript and transcript, now in the Mark Twain Papers.

446.16–17 Geo. R. Miner, Sunday Editor] Miner (1862–1918) had been a reporter and editor for several newspapers before becoming the New York
Herald’s
Sunday editor, a post he held from 1902 until 1908.

446.18 I have written Higbie] Clemens dictated and sent the following letter (CU-MARK):

21 FIFTH AVENUE

March 26. 1906
New York.

Dear Higbie:

I went down to Aurora about midsummer of ’62. I suppose it must have been toward the end of October, ’62 that I went to Walker River to nurse Capt. John Nye. I crossed the Sierras into California for the first time along about the middle of ’64, I should say.

Send me your manuscript. I shall be as competent as anybody to sit in judgment upon its value and arrive at a verdict. Then I will ask the New York Herald to name a price & come to my house and talk with me, in case he finds that your narrative comes up to his expectations. If he should decide that he doesn’t want it—but that is further along. If you have told your story with your pen in the simple unadorned & straightforward way in which you would tell it with your tongue, I think it cannot help but have value.

I was very glad to hear from you, old comrade, & shall be also glad to be of service to you in this matter if I can.

Sincerely Yours,
SL. Clemens.

Clemens nursed John Nye in late June 1862. He first left Nevada for California in May 1863, on a two-month visit to San Francisco, and then moved to San Francisco almost exactly a year later (see
L1: 9
July 1862 to OC, 224, 226 n. 1; 11 and 12 Apr 1863 to JLC and PAM, 250 n. 7; 18? May 1863 to JLC and PAM through 20 June 1863 to OC and MEC, 252–59; and the link note following 28 May 1864 to Cutler, 302–3). Clemens continues the story of Higbie’s literary ambition in the Autobiographical Dictation of 10 August 1906.

447.4–5 silver-mining claim . . . in partnership with Bob Howland and Horatio Phillips] For Howland, see the Autobiographical Dictation of 19 January 1906, note at 295.20. Clemens probably first met Phillips in Carson City in August 1861. Shortly afterward they became partners in several claims in the Esmeralda mining district. Among them were the Horatio and Derby ledges, in which Howland was also a partner. Clemens and Phillips lived together in Aurora, in the Esmeralda district, in the spring of 1862 (
LI:
29 Oct 1861 to Phillips, 140–43; 8 and 9 Feb 1862 to JLC and PAM, 156, 161 n. 2; 13 Apr 1862 to OC, 186; 11 and 12 May 1862 to OC, 207; 30 July 1862 to OC, 232–33 n. 2).

447.9 I secured a place in a near-by quartz mill] Clemens described his experience at the quartz mill in chapter 36 of
Roughing It
.

447.25 Pioneer] The Pioneer Mill, erected in June 1861, was the first in Aurora (13 Apr 1862 to OC,
L1
188 n. 8).

449.3–7 I parted from Higbie . . . told all about this in “Roughing It.”] Clemens arrived in Virginia City, to take up his new post on the
Territorial Enterprise
, by late September 1862 (see AD, 9 Jan 1906, note at 251.32–38). He told about his experiences there in chapters 42–49, 51–52, and 54–55 of
Roughing It
.

450.13–19 This young man wrote me two or three times a year . . . any more] Clemens recalled William James Lampton (1851?–1917), a second cousin, who wrote on 20 May 1875 from St. Louis, where he was a bookkeeper for a dealer in pig iron, introducing himself and asking for Clemens’s assistance in getting a position as a reporter. Clemens’s reply survives only as a notation he made on the envelope of Lampton’s letter: “Told him to serve an apprenticeship
for nothing
& when worth wages he would get them.” Contrary to the account in this dictation, however, Lampton did not take Clemens’s advice, but in 1877 instead made his entry into journalism by using his father’s money to start his own newspaper. In February 1882 he became city editor of the Louisville (Ky.)
Courier-Journal
. It seems unlikely that he wrote Clemens “two or three times a year.” Only two additional letters from Lampton survive, dated 26 June 1876 and 18 February 1882, neither of them reporting encouragingly on Clemens’s employment “scheme” and neither of them received with enthusiasm (see 22? May 1875 to Lampton,
L6
, 484–85). Just one letter from Clemens to Lampton is known to survive. Written in 1901, evidently in March, it is a sarcastic response to Lampton’s patriotic poem, “Ready If Needed.”

450.20–21 my nephew, Samuel E. Moffett . . . lost his inherited property] Moffett (1860–1908) had an inheritance left by his father, William (1816–65), a St. Louis commission merchant, consisting of stocks and U.S. savings bonds totaling about eight thousand dollars and a one-third interest in some “unproductive land” in Missouri (“Estate of S. E. Moffett at the beginning of the administration of P. A. Moffett as Guardian in 1870,” 23 Nov 1881, CU-MARK). His mother, Clemens’s sister Pamela, managed it until November 1881, when he turned twenty-one and she transferred control to him, along with a detailed accounting of earnings and expenditures over the years. By August 1882 Moffett had drawn on his inheritance to finance the purchase of a ranch in Kingsburg, California, near Fresno, where he tried raising wheat, fruit, and livestock. Within three years, however, he was attempting to sell the property. In January 1886, having failed to find a buyer, he was instead offering, without success, to rent it. How he finally disposed of this ranch is not presently known, but he evidently was unable to recoup his investment. He also owned a ranch in San Diego that he was preparing to sell for $3,000 in April 1886 (Pamela A. Moffett–Samuel E. Moffett correspondence, 1881–86, especially 23 Nov 1881, 15 June 1885, 25 Apr 1886; Goodman to Moffett, 14 Jan 1886, 23 Jan 1886, 31 Jan 1886; all in CU-MARK).

450.22–23 A nervous malady had early unfitted him for attending school] Moffett’s unidentified disorder and an eye condition that prevented reading troubled the Clemens and Moffett families in the early 1870s (
L4:
17 Feb 1871 to JLC and family, 332–33; 11 June 1871 to JLC, 403; 21 June 1871 to OC and MEC, 411; MEC and SLC to JLC and PAM, 26 Nov 1872,
L5
, 230, 232 n. 6; 28 Aug 1874 to Belknap,
L6
, 212). Clemens also discusses the maladies, and Moffett’s compensation for them, in his Autobiographical Dictation of 16 August 1908.

450.23 he had come up without a school education] Moffett eventually was able to acquire formal education. In 1881 and 1882 he was a student at the University of California in Berkeley before completing his undergraduate education at Columbia University. In 1901 he earned an
A.M. degree from Columbia, and in 1907 a Ph.D. (“Editor Moffett Dies, Struggling in Surf,” New York
Times
, 2 Aug 1908, 1; “Samuel E. Moffett,”
Collier’s
41 [15 Aug 1908]: 23; “Vita,” Moffett 1907, 125–26).

450.31 built the whole game out of his memory] In his Autobiographical Dictation of 16 August 1908, Clemens dates this incident in 1870, when Moffett was ten years old. This history game anticipated the game Clemens conceived of in the spring of 1883 and first worked out in rudimentary fashion in July of that year. His assistants in subsequently researching historical facts and devising the game board were Orion Clemens and Charles L. Webster. Clemens patented the resultant game in August 1885, but it was 1891 before he tried to market it, as “Mark Twain’s Memory-Builder.” He was not successful (see
N&J3
, 19–20 n. 37).