HOMEWOOD - After much research, local historian David Antonucci has found Mark Twain. The 19th century American writer's path from Carson City to Tahoe in 1861 has mystified most, but Antonucci has found what most Twain scholars regard as the correct route.

"It's not often we hear new information on Mark Twain, so this was a treat," said McAvoy Layne, an Incline-based Twain scholar and impersonator. "I think David has the right route. I really do."

Antonucci, a Homewood resident, began his search for Mark Twain last year as part of a history project for a class he took at South Shore's Lake Tahoe Community College and for a book he is writing on Tahoe.

He has been interested in Twain's route for 10 years and presented his findings last month at the Fifth International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College in New York with Layne.

"It was quite a hit," Antonucci said. "I had never been to a conference with scholars. I was pretty intimidated."

Twain came to Tahoe for the first time in September 1861, when he was still known as Samuel Clemens, but his travels didn't appear in his writing until his visit was featured in two chapters of "Roughing It," which was published 30 years later.

Twain came to Carson City in early 1861 to work for the secretary of the governor of the Nevada territory, and he and a friend decided to do the 11-mile trek on foot to Lake Tahoe to explore the land and stake a timber claim.

Although E.B. Scott in "Saga of Lake Tahoe" and other authors place Twain's arrival in Tahoe at Glenbrook, Antonucci says Twain's description does not fit with that assertion. Other people speculate he came to the east or west shore, but Twain states "We were on the north shore."

Using maps to match the topography and the distance recorded in Twain's two chapters and letters he wrote, Antonucci pinpointed Twain using a logging road known as Ash Canyon and the road that intersects it, Placer County Emigrant Road.

He claims that Twain climbed two peaks and came down to the lake through Tunnel Creek Canyon, which comes out south of Incline Village at Hidden Beach.

"It is exactly as he described it," said Antonucci, who retraced Twain's steps and biked the route with Layne in the heat of July. Twain writes that he crossed ridge after ridge and didn't see the lake, but "at last the lake burst upon us," a description that Antonucci says fit perfectly when he hiked the trail to the lake. "That was the a-ha moment. You come out of the forest and boom - there it is."

After reaching the lake, Twain reports they found a small rowboat and set out across what he calls a deep bend in the lake, which Antonucci says is Crystal Bay.

They traveled by boat an estimated three miles to a campsite that Antonucci claims is Speedboat Beach, due to Twain's description of the sandy beach and large boulders.

From their campsite, Twain and his friend set out three miles to search for an ideal timbering location. Although he doesn't specify the direction he travels, Antonucci estimates that he traveled west to the current location of Tahoe Vista.

"I had to do a lot of deductive research on what made sense to staking a timber claim. It matches the description of the forest that would have been there," Antonucci said. "Mark Twain said himself he was near Carnelian Bay."

In addition to the New York conference, Antonucci has presented his findings to the local Kiwanis Club and is scheduled to speak to the Kiwanis Club in Carson City and the South Lake Tahoe Historical Society. His findings may also be published in the journal "Mark Twain."

He said he is willing to speak to non-profit groups and school groups as well.

"I feel pretty good that people who are (Twain) scholars have given it a stamp of approval," Antonucci said.



Twain wrote:

"We tramped a long time on level ground, and then toiled laboriously up a mountain about a thousand miles and looked over. No lake there. We descended on the other side, crossed the valley and toiled up another mountain three or four miles high, apparently, and looked over again. No lake yet. We sat down tired and perspiring, and hired a couple of Chinamen to curse those people who had beguiled us. Thus refreshed, we presently resumed the march with renewed vigor and determination. We plodded on, two or three hours longer, and at last the lake burst upon us - a noble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the sea, and walked in by a rim of snow-clad mountain peaks that towered aloft full three thousand feet higher still! It was a vast oval, and one would have to use up eighty or a hundred good miles in traveling around it. As it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole earth affords."

- From "Roughing It" by Mark Twain