By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
Mark Twain is known around the world for many things, including my personal favorite of his many books, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Twain’s name even adorns the award that the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. presents annually to honor American humorists.
Few people know, however, that 150 years ago Twain also was the plaintiff in a fascinating copyright infringement lawsuit filed in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The lawsuit’s full backstory emerged just two decades ago, thanks to the Utah Historical Quarterly. I stumbled upon the tale—written by former California federal prosecutor Steven L. Staker—while googling for information about Twain in Utah.
The copyright infringement claim involved Twain’s 1873 novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, co-authored with his friend and neighbor Charles Dudley Warner. The book satirizes greed and political corruption in post-Civil War America.
Although not one of Twain’s most famous works, the novel did give a lasting nickname to the American era of 1870 to 1900—the Gilded Age.
Twain was an emerging celebrity in 1875. He was popular but had not yet written his most famous novels, such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889).
Twain, however, had visited and written about Utah. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Twain’s older brother Orion as secretary to the governor of the Nevada territory, and so Twain traveled out west with him to start the job.
After leaving St. Louis, the two men spent a couple of weeks on a stagecoach and eventually visited the Mormons in Salt Lake City. They stayed at a hotel on Main Street above the old Pony Express Station.
Twain wrote about the adventures in his 1872 book Roughing It, which later inspired parts of the TV series Bonanza. Twain enjoyed Salt Lake City, saying he left here “hearty and well fed and happy.”
But not every moment was quite so blissful. During Brigham Young’s courtesy visit with the two brothers, the Mormon leader reportedly ignored Twain (then still known only as Samuel L. Clemens).
As the meeting ended, Twain claims Young patted him on the head and said to Orion, “Ah—your child, I presume—Boy or girl?”
Twain got a bit of journalistic revenge for the alleged slight when he humorously described the many difficulties Young faced while trying to manage several spouses and dozens of children. Twain also famously (and fictionally) described Young’s “7-foot-long, 96-foot-wide bed,” built for him and all his wives.
A few years later, Twain encountered Utah once again.
Through a friend, he learned of the possible infringement of the best-selling Gilded Age novel. Twain had adapted the book into a play too, and New York City audiences—including President Ulysses S. Grant—had enjoyed its debut run in 1873.
In 1875, Willie Gill (an actor and theatre manager from Virginia City, Nevada) contracted with the Salt Lake Theatre (formerly owned by Brigham Young) for a weeklong performance of a play based on Twain’s book and also called The Gilded Age. Twain did not authorize the Utah performance.
Twain’s father was a lawyer and the budding author had been burned by copyright infringements before. When he learned about the planned Utah production, he hired the Salt Lake City law firm of Tilford and Hagan to assert a copyright infringement claim.
Twain’s law firm was a high-profile force in the local courts. Attorney Frank Tilford had left Kentucky for California during the Gold Rush and eventually followed the mining law work to Utah. He also helped prosecute John D. Lee for the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Albert Hagan had represented a former plural wife in her divorce claim against Brigham Young and soon would help Young’s heirs challenge the dead prophet’s will. Hagan later married one of Young’s daughters.
Twain’s lawyers met with the accused infringers, who offered to settle by giving Twain a 50/50 split of the Utah show’s proceeds. Twain, however, instructed his Salt Lake City lawyers via telegram: “No compromise with thieves on any terms, not even for the entire proceeds.”
And so the litigants squared off in February 1875 in the courtroom of the Utah Federal Judge James McKean, a former congressman and Civil War colonel in the Union Army. For five years, McKean also waged war from his bench against the practice of polygamy.
Judge McKean issued a preliminary injunction in favor of Twain through March 1, 1875, the date when a full trial was scheduled. The court order shut down the Utah production of The Gilded Age before it even started.
In response, Gill sent a letter to the Salt Lake Tribune, defending his actions and claiming he did not know about the law Twain said protected his work. Gill also left town, however, resulting in a default final court judgment in favor of Twain.
In August 1876, Twain’s version of the play came to Utah through proper channels, with famous actor John T. Raymond (born John T. O’Brien) in the lead. By all accounts, it was a great success, but to the best of my knowledge, Twain—who lived until 1910—never crossed paths directly with Utah again.
Perhaps being dissed by Brigham Young and having to litigate here left a poor aftertaste in Twain’s mouth. And yet, for its part, Salt Lake City remembers him fondly.
A Main Street plaque near where Twain stayed during his 1861 visit to Utah recalls the most famous American writer’s words describing the city in the mountain desert:
“The city lies in the edge of a level plain as broad as the State of Connecticut, and crouches close down to the ground under a curving wall of mighty mountains whose heads are hidden in the clouds, and whose shoulders bear relics of the snows of winter all the summer long.“
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022. Mike’s new holiday novel, tentatively titled “The Merry Matchmaker Monks,” will be published in time for Christmas 2026.
