30 July 1862 • Aurora, Calif./Nev. Terr. (MS: NPV, UCCL 00056)
Your letter to the Union was entirely satisfactory. I hope you will receive an answer right away, because Barstow has offered me the local post Ⓐemendationof local reporter for the Enterprise at $25 a week, and I have written him that I will let him know next mail if possible, whether I can take it or not. If G. is not sure of starting his paper within a month, I think I had better close with Barstow’s offer.1explanatory note
Old Snyder, who owns in the H & D says it’s a big thing on account of the water and mill-site, even if it does have to lie still a while. Possibly he may be right.2explanatory note
Yes, the 50 feet in the Monitor, is worth what we paid for the H & D. I acknowledge that much.
Of course I don’t want to correspond with the Age until I know whether I shall remain here or not. So it makes no difference.
Yes—I wish John3explanatory note would come. These claims of ours would soon sing a different song.
Oh, no, Johnny wasn’t expert at drawing deeds, by a d—d sight. I think Turner will discover that he managed to worry along, though, at it. He’s a d—d liar, too. He knows right well that his deed don’t convey him all the ground. Certainly—certainly—I have no doubt we shall understand each other. He shall understand me, at least. He can’t scare me with his legal threats either, such as he insinuated in his letter to me. He wants to know what I gave? Tell him that ranks as a “leading question.” As to the balance, I told him my deed conveys all of the ground to me—and that Johnny told me to deed half of it to him if he had not returned by the 1st July. I should think my words were explicit enough. I wrote the Judge as soon as I heard he was in Carson. I don’t care a d—n whose money bought the ground. Now I shan’t answer the Judge’s letter until I am in a good humor. I think my deed bears date March 1st, but I can’t go up to the Co. Clerk’s Rec.’s to see to-night, and I have not thought of it sooner. I have had a sort of general offer of $25 for my 25 feet of Mountain Flower, & have accepted. If he say the w ◇◇◇◇ he I told my agent Ⓐemendation(I don’t sell ground myself,) to sell the Judge’s at the same price, according to the Judge’s instructions to me, and he did so. The bargain will probably be closed within 3 or 4 days, and if the Judge don’t like the price he must speak before it is too late. The price suits me, since I can do no better. The balance of the ground won’t sell now, but the Fresno will be either valuable or worthless in a few weeks. I have started a man out to sell fifty feet in that to for ⒶemendationJudge Turner.4explanatory note
Oh, I don’t blame the Captain5explanatory note for being ill-natured Ⓐemendationwhen he was sick. The confinement made me so. I was what the yankees call “ugly,” you know.
I suppose Billy will know what to do with the National ground. If he thinks it best to sell, I will send him J.’s letter t as Ⓐemendationauthority.6explanatory note
What’s the matter with the mill out there? What’s the matter with Tillou? Why work the case-rock,7explanatory note if the ledge is 4 feet wide. ⒶemendationI would not think it impossible to work a 4-foot shaft.
This offer from the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise was a tribute to the talent for humor that Clemens had displayed in his “Josh” letters to the paper. It was also the result of practical considerations: the Enterprise needed a substitute for Dan De Quille (William Wright), its local editor, who was planning a trip East; and the management was well aware of Clemens’s potential political influence. “Orion and Sam. may have believed Sam. had been employed by the Enterprise because of the ‘Josh’ letters; Barstow and Goodman may have thought that it might be helpful to have Sam. on the staff when Orion gave out the contracts for the public printing” (Andrew J. Marsh, 674 n. 71). In fact, Joseph T. Goodman and Company, owners and publishers of the Enterprise, did secure the contract to print the laws passed by the second Territorial Legislature (Laws 1863). See also ET&S1 , 14–18.
J. L. Snyder was a partner, with Horatio G. Phillips, Robert M. Howland, and Clemens in the Horatio and Derby tunnel project on Martinez Hill in Aurora (see 8 and 9 Feb 62 to JLC and PAM, n. 2click to open letter). Their land claim on the hill included rights to “the water that may be obtained from the drifts & tunnels together with the right of a dump & Tunnelling & mill Sight & priveledges & all of the land for mining purposes with the necessary tail way from the mill” (plat dated 29 Dec 61, PH in CU-MARK, courtesy of Michael H. Marleau).
John E. K. Stotts.
Clemens did not let his agent sell George Turner’s share of the mining stock discussed here. On 7 August (as he indicates in the next letter) he deeded to Turner, for $1,000, almost half of the 1,412½ feet in sixteen ledges he had acquired from John D. Kinney, for $1,000, on 1 March 1862, just before Kinney’s return to Cincinnati (PH of deeds in CU-MARK, courtesy of Todd M. Axelrod). Among the shares Turner received were 50 feet in the Fresno, 100 feet in the first northeast extension of the Fresno, and 25 feet in the Mountain Flower. The latter had been described by the Carson City Silver Age as “a new lode of gold-bearing quartz” that was “richer than anything heretofore found in the district” (“Aurora,” Marysville [Calif.] Appeal, 22 Feb 62, 2, reprinting the Silver Age of 16 Feb 62).
John Nye.
Orion Clemens was holding a deed of 28 January 1862 for John D. Kinney’s purchase of ten feet in the National ledge in Humboldt County (deed in CU-MARK). Evidently Kinney had sent instructions from Cincinnati to sell out his mining interests. Clemens suggests here that Orion should consult William Clagett, who was living in Humboldt County, about the sale.
Rock “altered by vein-action,” between the vein and “unaltered” rock (Raymond, 18, 25).
MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).
L1 , 231–233; MTB , 1:203, brief excerpt; MTL , 1:83, same excerpt.
see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 459–61.