From: Scott Holmes
To: Twain-L
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2013 13:07:51 -0700
I'm just curious if this was something that actually occurred or just another stretcher from Twain's imagination. I know that at least a few Twain-L subscribers have more than a passing knowledge of the history of Nevada Territories and its early statehood. (Chapter 34 from Roughing It).
Re: Hyde vs Morgan
From: Harriet Smith
To: TWAIN-L@YORKU.CA
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2013 14:01:10 -0700
In the Mark Twain Project's edition of Roughing It (UC Press, 1993), the explanatory notes for chapter 34 (on pp 631-32) explain the historical background of the "Landslide Case" sketch, and refer the reader to additional sources. "Nevada tradition and internal evidence suggest that the mock trial, intended as an elaborate practical joke on Bunker ("Buncombe"), actually took place in Carson City sometime during the first two weeks of February 1862, before the courts began their regular session on 17 February (632, n. 223.18-19). Harriet Smith, MTP editor
Re: Hyde vs Morgan
From: Robert E Stewart
To: TWAIN-L@YORKU.CA
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2013 18:41:35 -0400 (10/13/2013 03:41:35 PM )
Aaah, my fellow Twainiacs, Hyde vs. Morgan is one of Twain's better stretchers. Fiction from start to finish. But like the "Genuine Mexican Plug" (Tom Nye's "razor-back" horse of an Enterprise letter) not without a general sort of source.
At some unknown date in the wayback machine, a huge piece of a mountain did slide down into Washoe valley, creating what is called "Slide Mountain." The huge gouge stands out today. It is a cliff above a broad valley of the sort that hang gliders love. http://www.alllaketahoe.com/parks/washoe_lake_state_park.php
From time to time, slides do still occur, and one during the 1850s damaged the overland trail branch down from the Truckee River route. There were also notorious snowslides that piled snow deep at the base of the slide. Most recently, the failure of a small dam in the 1983 caused a major slide there.
According to Myra Ratay in Pioneers of the Ponderosa, Dick Hyde was Dick Sides, who, she says, lived at Franktown, well south of the slide. Dick Morgan was fictional if the Census is any authority.
I think Twain chose the name "Hyde" because of Mormon leader Orson Hyde and the Mormon settlers who lived at Washoe City, north of the slide detritus area, and were recalled to Salt Lake City well before the Clemens brothers arrived. There was no major earth movement there during Sam's stay in Nevada, and definitely none that resulted in a lawsuit with the clever beauty of Twain's Hyde vs. Morgan. Probate Judge Orson Hyde laid his Mormon curse on the valley in 1857 before returning to the City of Saints. I used to commute through the valley daily, and in winter we would occasionally joke about being subjected to Hyde's curse when the snow was a small blizzard making the freeway through the middle of the valley hazardous chains-only driving. Marion Ellison's book of the Carson County Utah Territory court cases has no mention of such a lawsuit, and her husband, Bob, the go-to guy on early Carson County, UT, People and History (Bob and Marion are both Mormon) agrees it is a fabrication, perhaps Twain bringing Hyde into the book, and taking a poke at Atty. Gen. Benjamin B. Bunker, who Lincoln removed from office in June, 1863 for non-attention to duty and frequent absence from the Territory.
Bob Ellison and I have both looked for California newspaper (CDNC.ucr.edu) references to a mock trial, &c. Present day Nevada historians [names and example on request] agree that Effie Mona Mack, cited in the notes in Mark Twain Project's edition of Roughing It [UC Press, 1993], is not a good source for any serious scholar, though her students loved her. Bob Stewart
Re: Hyde vs Morgan
From: Barbara Schmidt
To: TWAIN-L@YORKU.CA
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2013 18:49:04 -0500 (10/13/2013 04:49:04 PM )
The Great Landslide Case By Mark Twain: Three Versions_ with editorial comment by Frederick Anderson and Edgar M. Branch published by Friends of the Bancroft Library, University of California (1972) is also a good source for further insight into the story.
Twain Chapter Comments
Some correspondence of the landslide case
From: Scott Holmes
To: Twain-L
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2013 13:07:51 -0700
I'm just curious if this was something that actually occurred or just another stretcher from Twain's imagination. I know that at least a few Twain-L subscribers have more than a passing knowledge of the history of Nevada Territories and its early statehood. (Chapter 34 from Roughing It).
Re: Hyde vs Morgan
From: Harriet Smith
To: TWAIN-L@YORKU.CA
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2013 14:01:10 -0700
In the Mark Twain Project's edition of Roughing It (UC Press, 1993), the explanatory notes for chapter 34 (on pp 631-32) explain the historical background of the "Landslide Case" sketch, and refer the reader to additional sources. "Nevada tradition and internal evidence suggest that the mock trial, intended as an elaborate practical joke on Bunker ("Buncombe"), actually took place in Carson City sometime during the first two weeks of February 1862, before the courts began their regular session on 17 February (632, n. 223.18-19). Harriet Smith, MTP editor
Re: Hyde vs Morgan
From: Robert E Stewart
To: TWAIN-L@YORKU.CA
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2013 18:41:35 -0400 (10/13/2013 03:41:35 PM )
Aaah, my fellow Twainiacs, Hyde vs. Morgan is one of Twain's better stretchers. Fiction from start to finish. But like the "Genuine Mexican Plug" (Tom Nye's "razor-back" horse of an Enterprise letter) not without a general sort of source.
At some unknown date in the wayback machine, a huge piece of a mountain did slide down into Washoe valley, creating what is called "Slide Mountain." The huge gouge stands out today. It is a cliff above a broad valley of the sort that hang gliders love. http://www.alllaketahoe.com/parks/washoe_lake_state_park.php
From time to time, slides do still occur, and one during the 1850s damaged the overland trail branch down from the Truckee River route. There were also notorious snowslides that piled snow deep at the base of the slide. Most recently, the failure of a small dam in the 1983 caused a major slide there.
According to Myra Ratay in Pioneers of the Ponderosa, Dick Hyde was Dick Sides, who, she says, lived at Franktown, well south of the slide. Dick Morgan was fictional if the Census is any authority.
I think Twain chose the name "Hyde" because of Mormon leader Orson Hyde and the Mormon settlers who lived at Washoe City, north of the slide detritus area, and were recalled to Salt Lake City well before the Clemens brothers arrived. There was no major earth movement there during Sam's stay in Nevada, and definitely none that resulted in a lawsuit with the clever beauty of Twain's Hyde vs. Morgan. Probate Judge Orson Hyde laid his Mormon curse on the valley in 1857 before returning to the City of Saints. I used to commute through the valley daily, and in winter we would occasionally joke about being subjected to Hyde's curse when the snow was a small blizzard making the freeway through the middle of the valley hazardous chains-only driving. Marion Ellison's book of the Carson County Utah Territory court cases has no mention of such a lawsuit, and her husband, Bob, the go-to guy on early Carson County, UT, People and History (Bob and Marion are both Mormon) agrees it is a fabrication, perhaps Twain bringing Hyde into the book, and taking a poke at Atty. Gen. Benjamin B. Bunker, who Lincoln removed from office in June, 1863 for non-attention to duty and frequent absence from the Territory.
Bob Ellison and I have both looked for California newspaper (CDNC.ucr.edu) references to a mock trial, &c. Present day Nevada historians [names and example on request] agree that Effie Mona Mack, cited in the notes in Mark Twain Project's edition of Roughing It [UC Press, 1993], is not a good source for any serious scholar, though her students loved her. Bob Stewart
Re: Hyde vs Morgan
From: Barbara Schmidt
To: TWAIN-L@YORKU.CA
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2013 18:49:04 -0500 (10/13/2013 04:49:04 PM )
The Great Landslide Case By Mark Twain: Three Versions_ with editorial comment by Frederick Anderson and Edgar M. Branch published by Friends of the Bancroft Library, University of California (1972) is also a good source for further insight into the story.