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Mark Twain, A Biography Vol I, Part 1: 1835 - 1866
XXXII. The Pioneer
by Paine, Albert Bigelow
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It was a hot, dusty August 14th that the stage reached Carson City and
drew up before the Ormsby Hotel. It was known that the Territorial
secretary was due to arrive; and something in the nature of a reception,
with refreshments and frontier hospitality, had been planned. Governor
Nye, formerly police commissioner in New York City, had arrived a short
time before, and with his party of retainers ("heelers" we would call
them now), had made an imposing entrance. Perhaps something of the sort
was expected with the advent of the secretary of state. Instead, the
committee saw two way-worn individuals climb down from the stage,
unkempt, unshorn--clothed in the roughest of frontier costume, the same
they had put on at St. Jo--dusty, grimy, slouchy, and weather-beaten with
long days of sun and storm and alkali desert dust. It is not likely
there were two more unprepossessing officials on the Pacific coast at
that moment than the newly arrived Territorial secretary and his brother:
Somebody identified them, and the committee melted away; the half-formed
plan of a banquet faded out and was not heard of again. Soap and water
and fresh garments worked a transformation; but that first impression had
been fatal to festivities of welcome.
Carson City, the capital of Nevada, was a "wooden town," with a
population of two thousand souls. Its main street consisted of a few
blocks of small frame stores, some of which are still standing. In
'Roughing It' the author writes:
In the middle of the town, opposite the stores, was a "Plaza," which
is native to all towns beyond the Rocky Mountains, a large,
unfenced, level vacancy with a Liberty Pole in it, and very useful
as a place for public auctions, horse trades, and mass-meetings, and
likewise for teamsters to camp in. Two other sides of the Plaza
were faced by stores, offices, and stables. The rest of Carson City
was pretty scattering.
One sees the place pretty clearly from this brief picture of his, but it
requires an extract from a letter written to his mother somewhat later to
populate it. The mineral excitement was at its height in those days of
the early sixties, and had brought together such a congress of nations as
only the greed for precious metal can assemble. The sidewalks and
streets of Carson, and the Plaza, thronged all day with a motley
aggregation--a museum of races, which it was an education merely to gaze
upon. Jane Clemens had required him to write everything just as it was--
"no better and no worse."
Well--[he says]--,"Gold Hill" sells at $5,000 per foot, cash down;
"Wild Cat" isn't worth ten cents. The country is fabulously rich in
gold, silver, copper, lead, coal, iron, quicksilver, marble,
granite, chalk, plaster of Paris (gypsum), thieves, murderers,
desperadoes, ladies, children, lawyers, Christians, Indians,
Chinamen, Spaniards, gamblers, sharpens; coyotes (pronounced ki-yo-
ties), poets, preachers, and jackass rabbits. I overheard a
gentleman say, the other day, that it was "the d---dest country
under the sun," and that comprehensive conception I fully subscribe
to. It never rains here, and the dew never falls. No flowers grow
here, and no green thing gladdens the eye. The birds that fly over
the land carry their provisions with them. Only the crow and the
raven tarry with us. Our city lies in the midst of a desert of the
purest, most unadulterated and uncompromising sand, in which
infernal soil nothing but that fag-end of vegetable creation, "sage-
brush," ventures to grow. . . . I said we are situated in a flat,
sandy desert--true. And surrounded on all sides by such prodigious
mountains that when you look disdainfully down (from them) upon the
insignificant village of Carson, in that instant you are seized with
a burning desire to stretch forth your hand, put the city in your
pocket, and walk off with it.
As to churches, I believe they have got a Catholic one here, but,
like that one the New York fireman spoke of, I believe "they don't
run her now."
Carson has been through several phases of change since this was written--
for better and for worse. It is a thriving place in these later days,
and new farming conditions have improved the country roundabout. But it
was a desert outpost then, a catch-all for the human drift which every
whirlwind of discovery sweeps along. Gold and silver hunting and mine
speculations were the industries--gambling, drinking, and murder were the
diversions--of the Nevada capital. Politics developed in due course,
though whether as a business or a diversion is not clear at this time.
The Clemens brothers took lodging with a genial Irishwoman, Mrs. Murphy,
a New York retainer of Governor Nye, who boarded the camp-followers.--
[The Mrs, O'Flannigan of 'Roughing It'.]--This retinue had come in the
hope of Territorial pickings and mine adventure--soldiers of fortune they
were, and a good-natured lot all together. One of them, Bob Howland, a
nephew of the governor, attracted Samuel Clemens by his clean-cut manner
and commanding eye.
"The man who has that eye doesn't need to go armed," he wrote later. "He
can move upon an armed desperado and quell him and take him a prisoner
without saying a single word." It was the same Bob Howland who would be
known by and by as the most fearless man in the Territory; who, as city
marshal of Aurora, kept that lawless camp in subjection, and, when the
friends of a lot of condemned outlaws were threatening an attack with
general massacre, sent the famous message to Governor Nye: "All quiet in
Aurora. Five men will be hung in an hour." And it was quiet, and the
programme was carried out. But this is a digression and somewhat
premature.
Orion Clemens, anxious for laurels, established himself in the meager
fashion which he thought the government would approve; and his brother,
finding neither duties nor salary attached to his secondary position,
devoted himself mainly to the study of human nature as exhibited under
frontier conditions. Sometimes, when the nights were cool, he would
build a fire in the office stove, and, with Bob Howland and a few other
choice members of the "Brigade" gathered around, would tell river yarns
in that inimitable fashion which would win him devoted audiences all his
days. His river life had increased his natural languor of habit, and his
slow speech heightened the lazy impression which he was never unwilling
to convey. His hearers generally regarded him as an easygoing, indolent
good fellow with a love of humor--with talent, perhaps--but as one not
likely ever to set the world afire. They did not happen to think that
the same inclination which made them crowd about to listen and applaud
would one day win for him the attention of all mankind.
Within a brief time Sam Clemens (he was never known as otherwise than
"Sam" among those pioneers) was about the most conspicuous figure on the
Carson streets. His great bushy head of auburn hair, his piercing,
twinkling eyes, his loose, lounging walk, his careless disorder of dress,
drew the immediate attention even of strangers; made them turn to look a
second time and then inquire as to his identity.
He had quickly adapted himself to the frontier mode. Lately a river
sovereign and dandy, in fancy percales and patent leathers, he had become
the roughest of rough-clad pioneers, in rusty slouch hat, flannel shirt,
coarse trousers slopping half in and half out of the heavy cowskin boots
Always something of a barbarian in love with the loose habit of
unconvention, he went even further than others and became a sort of
paragon of disarray. The more energetic citizens of Carson did not
prophesy much for his future among them. Orion Clemens, with the stir
and bustle of the official new broom, earned their quick respect; but his
brother--well, they often saw him leaning for an hour or more at a time
against an awning support at the corner of King and Carson streets,
smoking a short clay pipe and staring drowsily at the human kaleidoscope
of the Plaza, scarcely changing his position, just watching, studying,
lost in contemplation--all of which was harmless enough, of course, but
how could any one ever get a return out of employment like that?
Samuel Clemens did not catch the mining fever immediately; there was too
much to see at first to consider any special undertaking. The mere
coming to the frontier was for the present enough; he had no plans. His
chief purpose was to see the world beyond the Rockies, to derive from it
such amusement and profit as might fall in his way. The war would end,
by and by, and he would go back to the river, no doubt. He was already
not far from homesick for the "States" and his associations there. He
closed one letter:
I heard a military band play "What Are the Wild Waves Saying" the
other night, and it brought Ella Creel and Belle (Stotts) across the
desert in an instant, for they sang the song in Orion's yard the
first time I ever heard it. It was like meeting an old friend. I
tell you I could have swallowed that whole band, trombone and all,
if such a compliment would have been any gratification to them.
His friends contracted the mining mania; Bob Howland and Raish Phillips
went down to Aurora and acquired "feet" in mini-claims and wrote him
enthusiastic letters. With Captain Nye, the governor's brother, he
visited them and was presented with an interest which permitted him to
contribute an assessment every now and then toward the development of the
mine; but his enthusiasm still languished.
He was interested more in the native riches above ground than in those
concealed under it. He had heard that the timber around Lake Bigler
(Tahoe) promised vast wealth which could be had for the asking. The lake
itself and the adjacent mountains were said to be beautiful beyond the
dream of art. He decided to locate a timber claim on its shores.
He made the trip afoot with a young Ohio lad, John Kinney, and the
account of this trip as set down in 'Roughing It' is one of the best
things in the book. The lake proved all they had expected--more than
they expected; it was a veritable habitation of the gods, with its
delicious, winy atmosphere, its vast colonnades of pines, its measureless
depths of water, so clear that to drift on it was like floating high
aloft in mid-nothingness. They staked out a timber claim and made a
semblance of fencing it and of building a habitation, to comply with the
law; but their chief employment was a complete abandonment to the quiet
luxury of that dim solitude: wandering among the trees, lounging along
the shore, or drifting on that transparent, insubstantial sea. They did
not sleep in their house, he says:
"It never occurred to us, for one thing; and, besides, it was built to
hold the ground, and that was enough. We did not wish to strain it."
They lived by their camp-fire on the borders of the lake, and one day--it
was just at nightfall--it got away from them, fired the forest, and
destroyed their fence and habitation. His picture in 'Roughing It' of
the superb night spectacle, the mighty mountain conflagration reflected
in the waters of the lake, is splendidly vivid. The reader may wish to
compare it with this extract from a letter written to Pamela at the time.
The level ranks of flame were relieved at intervals by the standard-
bearers, as we called the tall, dead trees, wrapped in fire, and
waving their blazing banners a hundred feet in the air. Then we
could turn from the scene to the lake, and see every branch and leaf
and cataract of flame upon its banks perfectly reflected, as in a
gleaming, fiery mirror. The mighty roaring of the conflagration,
together with our solitary and somewhat unsafe position (for there
was no one within six miles of us), rendered the scene very
impressive. Occasionally one of us would remove his pipe from his
mouth and say, "Superb, magnificent!--beautifull--but--by the Lord
God Almighty, if we attempt to sleep in this little patch to-night,
we'll never live till morning!"
This is good writing too, but it lacks the fancy and the choice of
phrasing which would develop later. The fire ended their first excursion
to Tahoe, but they made others and located other claims--claims in which
the "folks at home, "Mr. Moffett, James Lampton, and others, were
included. It was the same James Lampton who would one day serve as a
model for Colonel Sellers. Evidently Samuel Clemens had a good opinion
of his business capacity in that earlier day, for he writes:
This is just the country for cousin Jim to live in. I don't believe
it would take him six months to make $100,000 here if he had $3,000
to commence with. I suppose he can't leave his family, though.
Further along in the same letter his own overflowing Seller's optimism
develops.
Orion and I have confidence enough in this country to think that if
the war lets us alone we can make Mr. Moffett rich without its ever
costing him a cent or a particle of trouble.
This letter bears date of October 25th, and from it we gather that a
certain interest in mining claims had by this time developed.
We have got about 1,650 feet of mining ground, and, if it proves
good, Mr. Moffett's name will go in, and if not I can get "feet" for
him in the spring.
You see, Pamela, the trouble does not consist in getting mining
ground--for there is plenty enough--but the money to work it with
after you get it.
He refers to Pamela's two little children, his niece Annie and Baby Sam,
--[Samuel E. Moffett, in later life a well-known journalist and editor.]
--and promises to enter claims for them--timber claims probably--for he
was by no means sanguine as yet concerning the mines. That was a long
time ago. Tahoe land is sold by the lot, now, to summer residents.
Those claims would have been riches to-day, but they were all abandoned
presently, forgotten in the delirium which goes only with the pursuit of
precious ores.
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