The Bohemians

by Ben Tarnoff

  This kind of puffery The groundbreaking ceremony for the Central Pacific Railroad took place in Sacramento on January 8, 1863; see David Haward Bain, Empire Express, pp. 122–124.

  Building a better Coolbrith’s early days in San Francisco: ICLL, pp. 80–83. “unpitying world” and “shafts of enmity . . .”: Ina Coolbrith, “Unrest,” published in the Los Angeles Star in 1862 after she arrived in San Francisco, excerpted in ICLL, p. 82.

  She first met “slender, delicate . . . ,” “We were little more . . . ,” “petted and spoiled . . .”: ICCWS. “ideal Poet . . .”: ICHC. Frequent mood swings: ICCWS. Soul-expiring sighs: Charles Phillips, “Charles Warren Stoddard,” Overland Monthly 51.2 (Feb. 1908), p. 137, and GP, p. 10. “moonstruck vacuity”: ICHC.

  Like the other “the tribe”: ICCWS. “The friendship . . .”: IC to CWS, May 4, 1872, HUNT. The collections of their correspondence held by HUNT and BANC offer invaluable insights into their relationship. One common thread is Coolbrith’s good-natured teasing of Stoddard for not answering her letters promptly. As time went on, Coolbrith’s tone grew perceptibly less playful, and occasionally even bitter: by 1879, it’s no longer clear if she’s kidding when she calls him “bad, fickle, unloving.” In a letter from March 20, 1868, and another from October 14, 1870, both held by HUNT, Coolbrith threatens to box Stoddard’s ears “soundly.” The second letter, written while Stoddard was in Tahiti, is worth excerpting at length: “Don’t you come back here! Don’t you dare to! Who do you suppose would come to see you—except to box your ears soundly and tell you how much they—loved you and had missed you, Charlie—god bless your dear heart!”

  In December 1863 “seedling . . .”: Ina Coolbrith, “December,” Golden Era, December 20, 1863. “Bret and I . . .”: Charles Henry Webb, “Things,” November 8, 1863. For more of the buzz in the Era about a new paper, see Bret Harte, “About the Inigo Boy,” Golden Era, November 15, 1863, and Charles Henry Webb, “Things,” Golden Era, November 29, 1863.

  They shared a single All quotes: Bret Harte, “Things,” Golden Era, November 8, 1863. For more on the shift in San Francisco’s literary climate, see SFLF, pp. 177–184.

  In early 1864 The first issue of the new journal, the Californian, appeared on May 28, 1864, and advertised itself as not only the “Best Journal on the Pacific Coast” but also the “Equal of Any on This Continent!” It also listed its offices at 728 Montgomery Street. This is the Genella Building, built in the early 1850s by the merchant Joseph Genella on the site of the first meeting of Freemasons in California. Miraculously, it is still standing. At the time, the Golden Era was at 543 Clay Street, about two blocks away.

  On February 26 The account of King’s illness and death comes from his friend Robert Bunker Swain’s Address Before the First Unitarian Society of San Francisco in Memory of Their Late Pastor, Rev. Thomas Starr King, March 15, 1864 (San Francisco: Frank Eastman, 1864), pp. 23–28.

  Twenty thousand people King’s funeral: Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream, pp. 104–105; Daily Evening Bulletin, March 5, 1864, and March 7, 1864; and Golden Era, March 6, 1864.

  Of course, his Stoddard’s poem: Charles Warren Stoddard, “Dirge,” Golden Era, March 6, 1864. “gentle Teacher . . .”: Ina Coolbrith, “Starr King,” Golden Era, March 13, 1864. See also Charles Henry Webb’s column in Golden Era, March 6, 1864. “A star . . .”: Bret Harte, “Relieving Guard,” Golden Era, March 13, 1864. Later, Harte would write two more poems for King: “At the Sepulchre,” to commemorate the dedication of a monument to King in 1864, and “His Pen” in 1865.

  A fitting eulogy “Every sufferer . . .”: a letter from Thomas Starr King to Charles Lyman Strong, August 3, 1863, HUNT. The Yosemite peak is called Mount Starr King, elevation 9,092 feet. In 1869, Josiah Whitney recorded the height of Thomas Starr King’s giant sequoia in the Calaveras Grove as 283 feet. King’s statue in the Capitol: Adam Goodheart, 1861, p. 380. Statue’s removal and “I wasn’t sure . . .”: Kimberly Geiger, “National Statuary Hall,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 2006. The legislator who introduced the resolution was Dennis Hollingsworth, a Republican state senator from Riverside County.

  Two months after San Francisco Twain’s previous visit to SF lasted from September 8, 1863, until mid-October. By October 19, 1863, he was in Carson City, Nevada, reporting on the First Annual Fair of the Washoe Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Society. Blistering from the sun: Mark Twain, “‘Mark Twain’ in the Metropolis,” published in the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise between June 17 and June 23, included in ET&S, vol. 2, pp. 9–12. Oysters, salmon, and fowl: ibid. “the most cordial . . .” and parties: MTR, p. 396. “I had longed . . .”: ibid.

  Recently, Nevada had Lager beer, Limburger cheese, smell of sagebrush, barren scenery: Mark Twain, “‘Mark Twain’ in the Metropolis,” p. 10.

  The Civil War loomed For an overview of the Carson City Sanitary saga, see James E. Caron, Mark Twain: Unsanctified Newspaper Reporter (Columbia: University of Missouri, 2008), pp. 148–155. Thomas Starr King’s work for the Sanitary Commission: Adam Goodheart, 1861, p. 380. For a breakdown of funds contributed by California to the Sanitary Commission, see Charles J. Stillé, History of the United States Sanitary Commission (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1866), pp. 539–541. The copy of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise with Twain’s hoax is no longer extant, but is quoted in a letter from the ladies of Carson City to the editors of the Territorial Enterprise, published in the Virginia City Daily Union, May 25, 1864, included in MTL, vol. 1, p. 289. “to aid . . .”: ibid.

  This hoax delivered Context for Twain’s miscegenation hoax: MTAL, p. 138, and Mark Twain, Mark Twain of the Enterprise, pp. 196–197.

  The fallout would be severe Carson City ladies’ letter in Virginia City Daily Union, May 25, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, p. 289. Enterprise’s refusal to print the letter, and Daily Union publishing it for three days in a row: ibid. Ostracized Mollie: MTAL, p. 138. “I am sorry . . .”, “not sober,” “I suppose . . . ,” and “I cannot submit . . .”: SLC to Mary E. Clemens, May 20, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, p. 288. Twain did publish somewhat of an apology in the Territorial Enterprise on May 24, 1864, included in MTL, vol. 1, p. 297. He also wrote a half-contrite letter to one of the aggrieved ladies; see SLC to Ellen G. Cutler, May 23, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, p. 296. She didn’t find it satisfactory, however, and her husband, William K. Cutler, challenged Twain to a duel; see MTL, vol. 1, p. 301.

  Meanwhile, Twain opened Reuel Colt Gridley: SLC to Jane Lampton Clemens and Pamela A. Moffett, May 17, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, pp. 281–287. Twain would later recount the story of Gridley and his flour sack in Roughing It. Twain’s attack on the Daily Union: Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, May 18, 1864, included in MTL, vol. 1, p. 287. The Union responded on May 19, 1864; see MTL, vol. 1, pp. 289–290. Twain replied in the Enterprise, provoking more responses from the Union; see MTL, vol. 1, pp. 290–291.

  The inner devils “insulting”: SLC to James L. Laird, May 21, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, p. 290. J. W. Wilmington replied directly to Twain on May 21, 1864; see MTL, vol. 1, p. 292. “cowardly sneak,” “without alternative,” “satisfaction due to a gentleman”: SLC to James L. Laird, May 21, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, p. 292. “Mr. Wilmington has . . .”: James L. Laird to SLC, May 21, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, p. 294. Twain’s response: SLC to James L. Laird, May 21, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, p. 293. Laird’s final refusal: James L. Laird to SLC, May 23, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, p. 295. Twain published the letters in the Territorial Enterprise, May 24, 1864. “unmitigated liar,” “an abject coward,” and “fool”: ibid., included in MTL, vol. 1, p. 295. Twain’s departure for SF: MTL, vol. 1, p. 302. By the time he left Virginia City, he faced at least three potential dueling partners: James L. Laird, J. W. Wilmington, and William K. Cutler. Twain believed he would soon face more challenges from other husbands of the Carson City ladies; see MTL, vol. 1, p. 298.

  The reasons are unclear “afraid of the grand
jury,” “Washoe has long . . .,” and his plan to return East: SLC to Orion Clemens, May 26, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, p. 299. “The indignation . . .”: Gold Hill Daily News, May 30, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, p. 302.

  Not exactly a “It cannot be said . . .”: George E. Barnes, “Mark Twain as He Was Known during His Stay on the Pacific Slope,” in TIHOT, p. 47. Twain omits the incident from Roughing It (1872). For later accounts, see Mark Twain, “How I Escaped Being Killed in a Duel,” in Tom Hood’s Comic Annual for 1873, ed. Tom Hood (London: Fun, 1872), pp. 90–91, and AMT, pp. 296–298.

  On November 8, 1863 Ward’s arrival, debut, and background: MTAL, pp. 129–130, and SFLF, pp. 158–162. Lincoln reading Ward aloud to his cabinet: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), p. 481.

  A tall, thin man Ward’s appearance: Don C. Seitz, Artemus Ward: A Biography and Bibliography (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1919), p. 148; Artemus Ward’s Mormon Entertainment: Opinions of the New York Press (New York: Chaplin, Bromell, Scott & O’Keefe, 1865), p. 23; and SFLF, p. 161. Ward first found fame through a series of newspaper sketches, collected in the best-selling Artemus Ward: His Book. “praps”: Charles Farrar Browne, Artemus Ward: His Book (New York: Carleton, 1862), p. 79. “faseshus”: ibid., p. 24. Ward’s lecture style: San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, November 14, 1863; Dan De Quille, “Artemus Ward,” San Francisco Examiner, February 26, 1888, included in Lawrence I. Berkove, ed., The Sagebrush Anthology, p. 247; Mark Twain, “How to Tell a Story,” in How to Tell a Story and Other Essays (Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, 1901 [1897]), pp. 8, 11–12; and SFLF, p. 161.

  “The point of his lecture” “The point . . .”: San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, November 14, 1863. Many critics objected to the absence of a moral purpose in Ward’s lecture. They were particularly annoyed by the fact that Ward dressed like a gentleman yet had nothing elevating or edifying to say. See SFLF, pp. 161–162, and Bret Harte, “Artemus Ward,” Golden Era, December 27, 1863. “humor that belongs . . .” and “that fun . . .”: ibid. For the Golden Era’s glowing review of Ward’s debut, see Golden Era, November 15, 1863.

  Harte had hit Origins of “tall talk”: Kenneth S. Lynn, Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor (Boston: Little, Brown, 1959), pp. 23–45.

  Twain absorbed their Twain’s relationship to Southwestern humor: ibid., pp. 140–173; Bernard DeVoto, Mark Twain’s America, pp. 3–99. “Pikes” on the Pacific coast: Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream, pp. 192–193; G. R. MacMinn, “‘The Gentleman from Pike’ in Early California,” American Literature 8.2 (May 1936), pp. 160–169; and David Carkeet, “The Dialects in Huckleberry Finn,” American Literature 51.3 (Nov. 1979), p. 325.

  Artemus Ward also owed Ward’s stint in Virginia City: MTAL, pp. 129–134. Ward arrived on December 18, 1863, and left on December 29, 1863.

  Twain and Ward Twain’s first appearance in the New York Sunday Mercury and his first appearance in NY press: James E. Caron, Mark Twain, pp. 165–166. “leave sage-brush obscurity . . .”: SLC to Jane Lampton Clemens, January 2[?], 1864, MTL, vol. 1, p. 268.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “The birds” “The birds . . .”: Mark Twain, “‘Mark Twain’ in the Metropolis,” p. 11.

  He benefited from The Californian’s debut: SFLF, pp. 178–182.

  But creating “forty-eight . . .” and “seemed no . . .”: Charles Henry Webb, “Things,” Californian, May 28, 1864. In the same column, Webb explained the magazine’s name: “‘The Californian’ sounds plain, practical, and expressive. It is comprehensive, and commits the paper to no particular field [of] literature, politics, or religion, leaving, on the contrary, a free field open to it for the discussion of all.” Harte’s pieces were “Neighborhoods I Have Moved From” and “The Ballad of the Emeu.”

  Progress had always “bullet to a man’s heart . . .”: Californian, August 13, 1864. See also “The Morals of the Age,” Californian, August 6, 1864, and “A Mistake Corrected,” Californian, September 10, 1864.

  Reading the reports Coolbrith and the Civil War: ICLL, p. 83. All quotes: Ina Coolbrith, “Christmas Eve, 1863,” Golden Era, December 27, 1863.

  Life in San Francisco Anonymous contributions to Californian: ICLL, p. 85. Scene with Webb and all quotes: ECW.

  What Webb feared Webb’s fears: ECW. “He told me afterwards that for months he lived in mortal terror of being called down by some exchange on a plagiarized poem!” Coolbrith recalled. “You see I was still not exempt from suspicion.” Poem for her composition class: ECW. The editor was John Rollin Ridge, also known as Yellow Bird, who published a popular novel about a legendary Mexican bandit, The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, in 1854.

  The meeting with “He had a mother . . .”: ECW.

  Coolbrith would bring “Cheeks of an . . .”: Ina Coolbrith, “In the Pouts,” Songs from the Golden Gate (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1907 [1895]), p. 73.

  She had tamed All quotes: Ina Coolbrith (as Meg Merrill), “Not an Intercepted Letter,” Californian, February 4, 1865.

  By remarrying Meeting Harte and all quotes: ECW. Later in life, Coolbrith recalled “joshing” with Twain when he was “a lanky red-headed journalist” at the Call; see SFLF, p. 362, and “Ina Coolbrith of California’s ‘Overland Trinity,’” New York Sun, December 7, 1919.

  One day while All quotes: ECW.

  Francis Brett Harte First time she saw Thomas Starr King speak: ICLL, p. 83. Harte’s stern regimen of rewriting: Noah Brooks, “Bret Harte in California,” Century Magazine 58.3 (July 1899), p. 447, and Noah Brooks, “Bret Harte: A Biographical and Critical Sketch,” Overland Monthly 40.3 (Sept. 1902), pp. 201–202, 206. In the latter, Brooks writes, “Undoubtedly, when [Harte] re-wrote a story many times, he contrived to shorten it with each successive draft. Artists of less genius would have maimed while they condensed; Harte’s ‘boiling down’ never gave his work the appearance of writing that had been often re-written and often worked over for the mere sake of reducing its volume.”

  Coolbrith found him Later, Coolbrith would recall “what handsome men lived in San Francisco in the old days.” “It was hard to tell whether Frank Harte or Charlie Stoddard was the better-looking,” she remembered; see SFLF, p. 362. “manly”: ICHC. Harte’s flattering remark: BH to IC, May 31, 1865, BANC. “Every man . . .”: BH to IC, June 3, 1865, BANC. Harte’s letter was in response to Coolbrith’s “Fragment from an Unfinished Poem”; see ICLL, pp. 85–86.

  By the summer All quotes: “What the Press Says of It,” Californian, June 4, 1864.

  The Californian made “the best interests of California”: see advertisement for the Californian in San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, August 6, 1864. Climate too mild: “Defects of a Fine Climate,” Californian, October 8, 1864. People too ignorant, culture too crude: “Home Culture,” Californian, November 11, 1865. For more of the Californian’s contrarian, critical, satirical spirit, see “Howling as One of the Fine Arts,” June 4, 1864; “The Weakness and Divisions of the Protestant Churches in California,” July 16, 1864; “Murder as a Mathematical Certainty,” August 20, 1864; “The Wires Working,” February 18, 1865; Bret Harte, “On the Decay of Professional Begging,” June 17, 1865; “The Pioneers,” September 16, 1865; “The Latest Views of an Honest Miner,” November 25, 1865; “California Nomenclature,” December 2, 1865. The December 3, 1864, issue of the Californian carried a portion of a new novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, along with an editorial critical of the genre, entitled “‘Sensational Novels.’” “to pander . . .”: Californian, June 4, 1864. See also SFLF, pp. 180–181.

  Charles Warren Stoddard published The poem was “Drowned! Drowned!!,” published in the Californian, July 23, 1864. First year at Brayton Academy: CRP, chap. 3, pp. 4–8; CSCWS, pp. 60–64; GP, pp. 21–27.

  By the end “nervous wreck”: CRP, chap. 3, p. 8. Stoddard’s departure for Hawaii:
CSCWS, pp. 78–79. Daydreams: CRP, chap. 3, p. 9. “the whole current”: ibid.

  By the time “Heaven on the half shell”: Mark Twain, “‘Mark Twain’ in the Metropolis,” p. 10. Extravagances: ibid. and MTR, p. 396. Plan to sell mining stock, and plummeting value: SLC to Orion Clemens, May 26, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, pp. 299–301, and SLC to Orion Clemens and Mary E. Clemens, August 13 and 14, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, pp. 307–309. See also MTAL, pp. 143–146.

  Once, in a vainer Twain joining the Morning Call: James E. Caron, Mark Twain, p. 164, and MTAL, p. 144. Maguire’s Opera House event: Mark Twain, “Parting Presentation,” Alta California, June 13, 1864, in ET&S, vol. 2, pp. 5–8.

  In San Francisco he Life with Steve Gillis: SLC to William Wright (Dan De Quille), July 15, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, pp. 303–305; SLC to Jane Lampton Clemens and Pamela A. Moffett, September 25, 1864, in MTL, vol. 1, pp. 311–314; and MTB, vol. 1, pp. 253–256. Steve Gillis’s appearance: MTB, vol. 1, p. 213.

  These diversions aside A reporter for the Call: TAMT, pp. 155–157; MTB, vol. 1, pp. 257–258; and Edgar Marquess Branch, introduction to Mark Twain, Clemens of the “Call,” ed. Edgar Marquess Branch (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), pp. 1–35. For his Call articles, see ibid., pp. 40–278, and ET&S, vol. 2, pp. 31–61.

  It’s hard to imagine “soulless drudgery” and “awful slavery . . .”: TAMT, p. 156. See also James E. Caron, Mark Twain, pp. 164–165.

  To console himself Mild hoaxing: “What a Sky-Rocket Did,” San Francisco Morning Call, August 12, 1864, in ET&S, vol. 2, pp. 34–37. Albert S. Evans represented the city’s more respectable classes, and feuded not only with Twain but with San Francisco Bohemia as a whole. He invented a character named Armand Leonidas Stiggers, a caricature of the urban Bohemian. The Californian frequently ridiculed Evans in its pages. His rivalry with Twain: James E. Caron, Mark Twain, p. 196; ET&S, vol. 2, pp. 39, 329; Nigey Lennon, The Sagebrush Bohemian: Mark Twain in California (New York: Paragon, 1990), pp. 50–51; and Joanna Levin, Bohemia in America, pp. 116–117. “He said that . . .”: TAMT, p. 157.