The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-01-13
MARX TWAIN 5 BEGINNING
HIS FIRST NEWSPAPER WORK AND
THE BOTHER TT BROUGHT
HIS EMPLOYERS
MAN WHO KNOWS HIM BEST
Tells a Number of Interesting Rem
inIScences About His Early
Career-HOv He Got
His Name.
San Francisco Bulletin.

San Francisco Bulletin.
Mark Twain sends this Christmas greet
ing to California:
Browns Hotel, London, Sept %, 1900
Dear Sir: I accept with thanks the
privilege you offer me of sending Christ
mas greetings to San Francisco and the
coast. 1 am not as we'll acquainted with
San Francisco now as-I was thirty-two
years ago, when I saw it last, but my
home feeling for 1t has suffered no de-
cay, nevertheless. 1t is striking fact
that San Francisco has trebled its pop
ulation and quintupled it's other pro-
any other man has done as much for the
city as that. Yet I ask no monument.
only ask that in the Christmas festivities
this service shall not be coldly brushed
aside and the credit given to some loud
recent person who never did anything for
the town. could have gone earlier
If / had thought 1t was suggested
With greeting and salutation from a
neglected benefactor, am, dear sir
yours very truly, MARK TWAIN.
F. OLDES. Esq.
EARLY FRIENDS "REMINISCENCES
The man who knows most about Mark
Twain's career in California is Joseph 4.
Goodman, the veteran scholar editor
end man Of letters. Twain is essentially
Of the West in his style and thought,
and California has the best right to hold
him first among the writer's who have
made her name glorious in literature
The first literary work Of Samuel
Clemens said Mr.. Goodman, appeared
IN the Virginia City (Nev) Territorial
Enterprise in the year 1861. Dennis Nc
Carthy and 1 were editors and proprietors
or the publication at that time
samuel tried his hand a. mining short
ly after his advent in the territory. He
drifted about the diggings here and there
and attempted to wrest fortune from the
earth in humboldt and Esmeral6a conn
ties. He had locations and great expec-
tations. Although sure that his claims
had millions in them, yet he took nothing
out. From Esmeralda he wrote a series
OF letters TO the Enterprise over the
pseudonym of Josh
That fellow would make a good
newspaper man. said I, and we wrote
to him to come down and take a position
as reporter. He came and dished I'D
local for us, his co-worker being VIII
nam Wright, long famous as Dan de
9ulne. \ year went by when one day,
IN 1875 Clemens said to me: Say. Joe, I'd
IKE TO try some signed articles
HIS CHOICE OF MARK TWAIN"
am willing said L Do you want
TO sign your own name%
NO, answered Clemens I'm gnine.
to sign them Mark Twain"
Why Twain? l asked
Because he replied, in my pilot DAYS
on the Mississippi, when we got into the
sHa!loWs' and the lead was cast, 1 used
TO bend my head to listen as the cry
Zane ZANE up: Mary one" and, finally, Mark
twain Then he knew it was deep wa
ter and we could swing ahead without
lear. l never heard anything So sweet
as that Mark twain There was ALWAYS
peculiar richness about the sound that
charmed me, and I'm going to cling to
mark Twain
That name had struck his fancy-it
q
ginning OF the pseudonym by which
Clemens Is known to fame the world
over.
Mark Twain's first signed articles had
no reach, although they were character
lied by vein of humor that gave him
local reputa ton. Occasionally his work
was quoted. He made a ten-strike in
1863, however, when he wrote the cele-
brated Hopkins Murder
Mark prepared an account of a hor-
rlble murder supposed to have been per-
petrated in a big pine forest between
Dutch Nick's and Empire City Now
there isn't tree nor the sign Of tree
within fifty miles of there, and those two
names refer TO the same identical place
By way of explanation, let me tell you
that the Bulletin at that time was
warning people against speculation in
such properties as the Dana Mine, f
Nevada, and advising them to invest
their money in concerns of known solidity
in San Francisco.
'As Clemens told the story, Peter Hop
kins, q salOon1eeper, who lived with his
family at Dutch Nick's, read those Bull
letin articles intenuy. He owned a block
of Dana stock, and the next thing he did
was to sell it and invest his money in a
San Francisco concern, the stock of
which slumped Immediately. Hopkins
lost his fortune, went crazy murdered
his family in the big Pine forest that
didn't exist, and came riding into Empire
city brandishing the bloody scalps of his
wife and chiiSEen. 1t was at this exciting
point that the paper went to press.
when I went to breakfast the next
morning I found Jack Perry, the marshal
of Virginia City, with the paper in his
hand
That's terrible he exclaimed
What's terrfble?' quoth L
why, that horlT0ie murder at Dutch
Nick's'
Don't you see the absurdity of the
thing?' 1 asked. There isn't any pine
forest. and Dutch Nic1's and Empire
City are one and the same place
The marshal refused to see the joke
although he admitted that the whole
thing looked strange.
All the San Francisco papers jumped
at the story, 80 Geographic reports
flashed over the country in those days
The pony express was the generally
patroniZed news conveyance. When the
other Virginia City papers were received
on the coast, and when the Enterprise
came out on the following day and ex-
planned that the Hopkins tale was merely
satire, the Office was deluged with
condemnatory letters. From one journal
after another came communications to
the effect that they would refuse to ex-
change with us until the man who wrote
UP the Hopkins fabrication was dis
charged. People walked in and STONED
their paper on account of that Hopkins
story, and Sam concluded that he ought
TO be sacrlnced. 1 urged him to stay
with the job, however. and he suffered