1895



July 15 & 16  Cleveland, Ohio
July 18  Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.
July 19  Mackinac, Mich.
July 20  Petoskey, Mich.
July 22  Duluth, Minn.
July 23  Minneapolis, Minn.
July 24  St. Paul, Minn.
July 26 & 27  Winnipeg
July 29  Crookston, Minn.
July 31  Great Falls, Mont.
Aug. 1   Butte, Mont.
Aug. 2   Anaconda, Mont.
Aug. 3   Helena, Mont.
Aug. 5   Missoula, Mont.
Aug. 7   Spokane, Wash.
Aug. 9   Portland, Ore.
Aug. 10  Olympia, Wash.
Aug. 12  Tacoma, Wash.
Aug. 13  Seattle, Wash.
Aug. 14  New Whatcom, Wash.
Aug. 15  Vancouver, B.C.
Aug.  21 Victoria, B.C.

The schedule at left is based on the journal Major Pond kept while traveling with MT as tour manager, checked against newspaper reports. You can read Pond's entries yourself by clicking on the dates: although written in press agent's prose, they provide a good day-to-day sense of being on tour with MT. You can see how MT's performances were reviewed by clicking on the linked place names.

MT's original idea for an American leg to his Round the World tour was to talk in 9 cities between Cleveland (where he launched his first eastern tours) and San Francisco (where his career as professional lecturer began). California, however, was left off the itinerary that Pond put together. Pond had toured this northwestern territory earlier with other lecturers. Most of the route was new for MT, who especially liked the fact that it was "lake all the way from Cleveland to Duluth."

The largest audiences were in Cleveland -- 4200 people each night. Many of the other towns were small resort or mining communities, and Washington and Oregon were suffering economic hard times. The house in Anaconda was so thin that MT made Pond refund $100 to the local manager. The talk in Mackinac was almost cancelled, because no tickets had been sold, but 400 people showed up at the last minute and MT's performance, according to Pond, "was simply immense." Most places sold out, however, and MT's arrival was treated as a major event. Ticket prices ranged from 25 cents to $1. Pond got one-fourth of the receipts for his services, and expenses were large because Olivia and Clara Clemens and Mrs. Pond were along. Nonetheless MT was able to send $5000 to H.H. Rogers from Vancouver as a down payment on his debts. He also, according to Pond, profitted emotionally from the many signs along the route of his audience's affection for him: "Surely he is finding out that his misfortunes are his blessings," Pond noted in Tacoma; "He has been the means of more real pleasure to his readers and hearers than he ever could have imagined had not this opportunity presented itself."

"Leading citizens" held receptions for MT at many of the stops. In Missoula MT inspected the Twenty-Seventh U.S. Colored Regiment -- "buffalo soldiers" -- though it seems only the white officers and their families attended the lecture. It was probably on this trip that MT acquired the habit of allowing reporters to interview him in bed. Forest fires along the route meant that much of the landscape was obscured by smoke. In Olympia MT expressed regret about the fires, but told a crowd of local dignitaries that he didn't mind the smoke. In Victoria he bought 3000 cigars for the voyage across the Pacific.

Pond had traveled with MT before, but as his journal makes clear, on this trip he became a devoted admirer of Livy: "It is 'Mark Twain's' wife who makes his work so great." At the end of the road Pond looked back on it all as "the most delightful tour I have ever made with any party."