TWAIN-L Archives

Mark Twain Forum

TWAIN-L@YORKU.CA

Options: Use Forum View

Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Robert E Stewart <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 10 Aug 2014 17:11:04 -0400
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (60 lines)
Using PlainText format, I'll try again: Following is an offer of a  package 
of Twain information, free to anyone asking.
 
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.
 
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historical documents, the absence of a geographic place name is unimportant.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. 
 
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

ATOM RSS1 RSS2