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 Because the location of the Clemens' campsite is known through primary historical documents, the absence of a geographic place name is unimportant.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