Following is an offer of a package of Twain  information, free to anyone 
asking.
 
I am sure all Twain Circle members are aware  that the application to name 
Sam Clemens' 1861 Lake Tahoe  campsite "Sam Clemens Cove" has been laid on 
the  table "indefinitely" by the Nevada Board on Geographic Names. The  Tahoe 
basin is the ancestral home of the small Washoe tribe, and  the vote to 
table was taken at the request of, and out of respect  for, the Washoe Tribe, 
and for no other reason.
 
Prior to that, the Sam Clemens campsite on  the northeast shore of Lake 
Tahoe, in Nevada, was fully documented by  qualified Nevada historians as the 
campsite location mentioned in two of  Clemens 1861 letters, and his later 
book Roughing It. 
 
Because the location of the Clemens' campsite is known  through primary 
historical documents, the absence of a geographic place  name is unimportant. 
It is at a small, unnamed eastshore cove. Primary  documents, 'the iron pens 
of history', make it clear it was the site  used by Sam during his first 
timber claim trip, and  his followup trip to re-post the claim, both trips 
occurring in  September, 1861. 
 
For those interested in how the Lake Tahoe campsite  was identified, I will 
email to anyone requesting it, a PDF  of scans of the primary documents, 
including a narrative that details  how the documents led experienced 
researchers to Sam  Clemens' campsite on Lake Tahoe's Nevada shore.
 
These scans of old papers present the clear  primary-document paper trail 
leading to the "huge flat granite dining  table" described in the letter 
written by Sam on his return from the  camp, in late September, 1861. 
 
The PDF is a 6.2 MB file. Since the  forum is not designed to deliver 
attachments,  please eMail your request, on or off-forum, and you will receive  
the PDF by return email. [log in to unmask] (mailto:[log in to unmask]) 
 
If you have need of a library copy of the book of scans,  just ask. We have 
prepared a number of paperback  copies (Desktop by PageMaker). A paper copy 
of the narrative is tipped  in.
 
PROVENANCE: The primary  researchers include Guy L. Rocha, retired Nevada 
State Archivist and  award-winning historian; Jeff Kintop, the current Nevada 
State Archivist; Larry  Schmidt, Overland Emigrant Trails historian and 
retired Forest Service  Hydrologist with past service in the Lake Tahoe basin; 
Michael Marleau, the  document researcher who in 1976 discovered the John 
Nye & Co. (the  "brigade") timber claim filing among the Ormsby County (Carson 
City)  recorder's holdings; and myself, Robert E. (Bob) Stewart, a  
researcher in Nevada Territorial history, Sam Clemens in Nevada, and General  Land 
Office surveyors' field notes (from which the township plats were  drawn).
 
If you do request and review the material, we  respectfully solicit your 
comments; both pro and con.
  
Robert E. (Bob) Stewart
Carson City, Nevada
[log in to unmask] (mailto:[log in to unmask]) 
 
"[Mark  Twain] made no real pretense as to accuracy of time, place, or  
circumstance—seeking, as he said, 'only to tell a good story.' "—A. B.  Paine, 
Biography