Bob: I feel your pain. This may be an AOL-handshake issue. Try hitting return after 65 characters, counting spaces, whether you're finished with the sentence or not, and see what happens. Happy Thanksgiving! Dan -----Original Message----- From: Robert E Stewart <[log in to unmask]> To: TWAIN-L <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thu, Nov 27, 2014 3:21 am Subject: Twain's Tahoe Host, Final Try Moving to another computer, I will try this one last time: =20 Hoping your Thanksgiving today is full of family, food and friends, I =20 offer the following diversion, dubbed by my granddaughter as "Funny how = people=20 don't change despite modern technology.=E2=80=9D It is a runaway husband anecdote, peripherally involving Sam Clemens. It= =20 is a piece of Twain-related "gossip" from 1861. In researching people and places in 1861 Nevada Territory, I ran across= a =20 journal by sketch artist Joseph Lamson, of Maine, and obtained photocopies= =20 from Lamson's journal at CalHistSoc.=20 Lamson writes of hiking north along the east shore of Lake Tahoe in May,= =20 1861. He spent time exploring Cave Rock, then hiked north until he came= to a=20 =E2=80=9Chouse,=E2=80=9D an occupied log cabin, where he spent the night. =20 He writes of "small squirrels" [chipmunks] scampering in through the =20 chinking of the house, and the daughter of the unnamed "lady of the house= =E2=80=9D =20 chasing them off. He names his host as "Mr. Walker," and writes of a visi= tor,=20 "Mr. Patterson" also being there. Lamson mentions Shakespeare rock, and= the=20 meadow, where "Walker" is planting grain. It is clear he is at Glenbrook Bay, then called Walton's Landing, where= =20 four men (Capt. A. W. Pray, Rufus Walton, George Warren, and Nelson E.= =20 Murdock) had formed a sawmill company. Capt. Pray lived in Virginia City.= Walton=20 owned the Clear Creek toll road from there to a point just north of Carso= n=20 Valley. He collected toll where he, lived half-way along that road, near= =20 "Mr. Jones" sawmill. Warren and Murdock lived at the site. Numerous reco= rds=20 identify Nelson Eliphalet Murdock as a "millwright. Lamson's journal begs the question: "Mr. Walker and Mr. Patterson"? No =20 records have been found of a man named Walker at the Lake in 1861, and th= ere=20 was only the one cabin/house at Walton's Landing on the November 1861 =20 General Land Office original survey. But Lamson was specific about the oc= cupants=E2=80=99=20 names. In the September, 1861 letter by Sam Clemens, he writes that a few days= =20 earlier he and John Kinney had arrived at the =E2=80=9Clower camp=E2=80= =9D at the Lake, then=20 they ". . . set out for the only house on this side of the Lake, three miles from there, down the shore" on a stormy day in September 1861= =20 afternoon. In Roughing It he writes it had been "a three mile pull" to=20 reach the =E2=80=9CBrigade=E2=80=9D camp on first arrival. It becomes cle= ar from the =E2=80=9Cthree=20 miles=E2=80=9D that they considered the brigade camp to be their =E2=80= =9Clower camp=E2=80=9D and=20 they were now back at the point of beginning. Sam does not name or direct= ly=20 mention people there. In the 1861 letter Sam specifies =E2=80=9Clower cam= p=E2=80=9D, three=20 miles =E2=80=9Cdown the shore=E2=80=9D, and =E2=80=9Cthis side of the lak= e. =20 Four of his roommates at Mrs. Murphy=E2=80=99s (Capt. John Nye, William= Wagner,=20 Johannes Slott and James Coulter) were partners in a Tahoe timber claim.= =20 From a description of the claim by Will Wagner in 1861, and the 1862 claim= =20 survey and plat by the Ormsby County Surveyor, we know their =E2=80=9CJohn= Nye & Co.=E2=80=9D=20 camp was three miles north of the Warren/Murdock cabin. All of which=20 suggests Clemens =E2=80=9Clower camp=E2=80=9D was at the Brigade Claim of= Roughing It. A few weeks later, in November 1861, surveyor Butler Ives wrote in the=20 Land Office survey of the Glenbrook area, that the house was that of "Mes= srs.=20 Warren and Murdock." (The draftsman didn=E2=80=99t include the names on= the plat of=20 Ives=E2=80=99 survey.) Ives also notes the nearby "sawmill, just built".= (Roughing=20 It specifies "a saw-mill and some workmen", not a working sawmill.) In=20 December 1861, George Warren and Nelson Eliphalet Murdock filed a claim= on the=20 land under both the house and sawmill. In it they state they have lived= =20 there since May, 1860. So, OK, who is this =E2=80=9CWalker=E2=80=9D fellow that Lamson tells us= lived there in=20 May, 1861? I mentioned my quandary to a historian who retired from Law=20 Enforcement. He asked about Lamson, and then the occupants--two men, a wo= man and=20 a girl, and then promptly said " Murdock didn't want folks back home to= =20 find him", adding that Murdock was neither the first nor the only man to= use=20 the Gold Rush to skip out on his family. =20 A Murdock family genealogist in New York confirmed that Nelson Eliphalet= =20 Murdock, born 1810, was a millwright from New York who left his wife and= =20 three children in the East in 1852 for California--and was never heard= from=20 again. (The term is =E2=80=9Cgrass Widow.) Whether Lamson knew the true names of his host or not is unknown. It's=20 possible he was covering for Murdock, and equally possible they gave Lams= on=20 aliases. Same goes for Sam Clemens. Bob Stewart All documents mentioned above, excepting the Lamson Journal, are in the online package at https://futureboy.us/twain/2014Version6Total.pdf