Mark Twain Day by Day

 Sister Margaret Died – John Marshall Clemens Became Judge – Moved to Hannibal Sammy Survived Infancy

1835

November 30 Monday – Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) was born two months premature in the hamlet of Florida, Missouri to John Marshall Clemens (1798-1847) and Jane Lampton Clemens (1803-1890). The baby was named Samuel, for John’s father; Langhorne, for the friend of John Marshall’s who had helped him in his youth in Virginia.

26-year-old Dr. Thomas Jefferson Chowning (1809-1854) delivered baby Sam in the absence of the family physician, Dr. Hugh Meredith (1806-1864). The birthplace was a little frame house on South Mill Street [Wecter 43]. Sam was born sickly. His mother later recalled, “When I first saw him I could see no promise in him” [Powers, MT A Life 8].

Halley’s Comet had reached its perihelion on Nov. 17. It would return again in 1910, reaching its greatest visibility on Apr. 19 of that year, two days before Sam’s death.

John Marshall’s ancestors had come from England to Virginia [Wecter 3-7]. A generation later they moved over the Alleghenies and kept pushing west [8]. Sam’s grandfather, his namesake, was five when America declared independence in 1776. In 1803, the year of the Louisiana Purchase, Samuel B. Clemens (1770-1805) moved west into what would become West Virginia. He had married a Quaker named Pamelia (“Parmelia”) Goggin (1775-1844) and took their first of five children, John Marshall Clemens, named in honor of the first Chief Justice of the U.S. John Marshall married Jane Lampton on May 6 1823 [15].

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was the sixth child. The Clemens family moved to Florida, Missouri about June 1, 1835 from Tennessee [Wecter 39]. Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was President of the United States, and the Alamo was four months away. The South’s pastoral economy was firmly upheld by slavery and the North’s industrial economy waxed stronger. The early 1830s were a period of inflationary boom. The Federal government encouraged the speculative fever by selling millions of acres of public lands in western states like Michigan and Missouri. The West had spread to the edge of the Great Plains, and like many other families who had not found bounty in the East, the Clemens family moved into Missouri, the outpost of civilization, looking for the good life. Dreams of wealth in such an environment seemed realistic.

1836

May 21 Saturday – John Marshall Clemens purchased a somewhat larger house on the south side of Main Street in Florida, Missouri for $1,050 from Sam’s grandfather, Benjamin Lampton (1770-1837), who had occupied the house and moved to the country [Wecter 46].

John Marshall was involved in the project of making Salt River navigable as well as a plan to build a railroad between the town of Paris, Mo. and the smaller village of Florida. He frequented citizens’ meetings in the region and became well known in Pike, Ralls, and Monroe counties. He also spoke to members of the Legislature at Jefferson City.

November 30 Wednesday – Baby Sam’s first birthday.

1837

February – Big plans were afloat for developing the area. The Missouri Legislature appointed John Marshall to head a commission of six members to promote a Florida & Paris railroad. The same Legislature also encouraged John Marshall, together with John Adams Quarles (1802-1876), Dr. Hugh Meredith and others to found a school to be called The Florida Academy [Varble 125]. An educational foundation was set up with Marshall and Quarles as trustees. John Marshall was also involved in schemes to make the Salt River into a minor Mississippi [Wecter 47; Varble 125].

March 18 Saturday – Sam’s grandfather, Benjamin Lampton, age 67, died in Florida, Mo. [Wecter 47].

May 10 Wednesday – The early part of the decade saw an inflationary boom, which led to The Panic of 1837. The crisis occurred when every bank stopped payment in specie (gold and silver coinage). The West was badly hit by the panic, and would not recover for four or five years. The Clemens family would struggle financially for years, in part due to this panic.

November 6 Monday – John Marshall Clemens was sworn in as a judge of the Monroe County court. Wecter calls this the “zenith of his professional life and one that fixed upon him ever after the title of ‘Judge’” [Wecter 48]. He received two dollars a day while the court met [49]. John had trained to be a lawyer and was very exacting in his work. His letters show the graceful Spenserian script which educated people of the day displayed. Sam got his exacting nature from his father, and his humor and red hair from his mother. John Marshall built a one-story house, known as the “double house” on the land he’d bought before Sammy was born [Wecter 49; Powers MT A Life 14].

November 30 Thursday – Sam’s second birthday.

First half of year – The Clemens family moved to their third house in Florida, Mo. Wecter says “probably before the birth of their youngest child, Henry Clemens, on June 13” [Wecter 49]. They sold their second Florida house to John Quarles for a sum that reflected settlement of unpaid debts from the dissolved store partnership [49].

July 13 Friday – Henry Clemens, the youngest child of John Marshall Clemens and Jane Lampton Clemens was born in Florida, Mo. [MTL 1: 382]. Henry was the model for Sid Sawyer in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a boy upright in every way, not at all like his older brother Sam.

August ca. – Shortly after Jane Clemens recovered from childbirth, thirteen-year-old Orion was dragged along a picket fence by two oxen. He was saved from death or injury by Jane and a peg leg man who happened to be passing [Varble 127].

August 8 Wednesday – John Marshall Clemens’ term on the Monroe County court expired [Selby 1].

November 30 Friday – Sam’s third birthday.

1839

February – John Quarles had married Martha Ann “Patsy” Lampton (1807-1850), Jane’s younger sister, and opened a store at Florida, Missouri the year before the Clemens family arrived. In this month he closed his successful store at Florida and bought 70 acres of good farmland. A few months later he added 160 acres more [Wecter 50]. The farm was three and a half miles northwest of town. Quarles kept slaves (Some claim as many as 30 slaves, some eleven, and some as few as six) [Powers, Dangerous 41; Powers MT A Life 11; Dempsey 4]. Frequent visits to the Quarles Farm allowed Sam to hunt and fish, and gave him intimate contact with blacks. Stories told by his uncle John and also by older blacks fed Sam with grist for his later tales. (See The Twainian, Mar. 1942 for an insightful article on Quarles.)

A family story about three-year-old Sam, retold years later by his niece, Annie Moffett Webster (1852-1950).

“When Sam was about three he was distressed because he had ‘no tail bebind.’ He said, ‘The dog has a tail bebind, the cat has a tail bebind, and I haven’t any tail bebind at all at all.’ His uncle (I think it was his Uncle Hannibal) made a tail of paper and pinned it on his little dress, and he went around very proud and happy” [MTBus 44].

August, mid – About this time one-year-old Henry Clemens “eluded the colored boy who was caring for him and toddled into the hot embers at a soap kettle. While he was being tended by Jane Clemens and neighbor Mrs. Penn, Henry’s sister Margaret fell ill [Varble 127]. Sam sleepwalked into sister Margaret’s bedroom and tugged at her blanket. Nineteenth century rural America called this act “plucking at the coverlet,” an act presaging death. The family took this as a sign that little Sammy had “second sight” [Wecter 51].

August 17 Saturday – Nine-year-old sister Margaret died of “bilious fever” (typhoid or malaria). It was the first of many family deaths Sam would suffer. Wecter gives this date as Aug. 19 [51].

November 13 Wednesday – John Marshall Clemens sold properties around Florida for $3,000 to speculator Ira Stout. At the same time, John purchased a quarter of a city block in Hannibal on the Mississippi, about forty miles east of Florida, for what Wecter calls “the thumping price of $7000 paid in full” [Wecter 51-2; Powers, MT A Life 21]. Note: “Hannibal” was also a family name with no connection to the town. It may be argued that John paid too much for the quarter block in Hannibal.

November 20 Wednesday ca. – John Marshall sold another large parcel, 326 acres near the Ralls County line, for $2000 to Ira Stout  [Wecter 52].

November, mid-late – The Clemens family moved to Hannibal: John, Jane, Orion, Pamela, Benjamin, Sammy (nearly age four), the baby Henry, and a slave girl Jennie. Paine, in Boy’s Life of Mark Twain says the family lived first at Pavey’s Hotel (later Planter’s Hotel). The Paveys later moved to St. Louis. Wecter gives the time of the move as “about mid-November” [56].

The first home for the Clemens was the Virginia House, a rickety two-story hotel close to the river at the northwest corner of Main and Hill Streets [Varble 129].

John Marshall traveled to St. Louis soon after the family’s arrival. There he stayed with his half-sister Ann “Polly” Hancock (d.1893), and her English husband William Saunders (d.1885). John Marshall sought a loan from a distant relative James Clemens, Jr. (1791-1878) in order to make token payments on stock he needed to open a store in Hannibal. The two men had not met but had corresponded as youths. The loan was given; John Marshall returned to Hannibal and opened a store on the main floor; the family lived on the second floor. [Varble 131-2; Powers, MT A Life 21].

Sam grew up on the river, in that “sleepy white washed town” which was to be his theatre of boyhood. Here he knew dreams, adventure, terror and sorrow. Sam Clemens would immortalize Hannibal in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn [Powers, Dangerous 50].

November 30 Saturday – Sam’s fourth birthday.

December, mid – John Marshall had been drafted for a border war with Iowa over a disputed boundary, but the matter was settled by this time [Wecter 56].

Brother Benjamin Died – Family Moved to Hill Street House – Murder Witnessed

Many Adventures – Cholera, Measles and Death – John Marshall Clemens Died

Sam the Printer’s Devil

Sam’s boyhood days in Hannibal, from ages four to eleven were filled with adventures, escapades and personalities many of which were to find their way into his many novels years later. Among those that might have taken place anytime during this decade were: The sale, beating and killings of slaves. Accidents on the river; Corpses washing up at Hannibal; Cave adventures, including the cadaver kept in McDowell’s Cave; Town drunks, including the Blankenship clan, Tom (b.1831?) being Sam’s model for Huck Finn. Injun Joe. Judge Clemens keeping the peace with a hammer on the head of two rowdies; Pranks at school. Sam’s claims of near drowning nine times; Rafting adventures; Hunting, fishing; Gang hangouts; Falling through the ice on the river; Steamboats arriving at the Hannibal docks; The swimming hole in Bear Creek; Jim Wolfe’s descent in his flying nightshirt into a candy pull; Sam dancing naked and “playing bear” in the moonlight while two girls watched in secret behind a shade, etc.

Most of these boyhood adventures cannot be pinned to a date, or even to a specific year. Wecter does a good job of identifying many of them, and Powers writes a powerful treatment of the psychological makeup of these boyhood years in Dangerous Waters. Some listings of Sam’s boyhood friends are found here and there. A picture taken in 1922 of Sam’s surviving childhood friends included Norval “Gull” Brady (1839-1929), Dr. B.Q. Stevens, John Ro Bards (1838-1925), Moses D. Bates Jr., Mrs. Laura Hawkins Frazer (1837-1928), and T.G. Dulaney; not pictured and deceased at that time: S.H. Honeyman, Jimmy McDaniel, B.O. Farthing, and Ed Pierce [The Fence Painter, Winter 1986/1987 Vol. VI No.4 Hannibal, Mo.]. Other friends are listed in various dated entries. See especially Feb. 6, 1870 to Will Bowen for several escapades remembered.

In his Nov. 30, 1906 A.D., Clemens recalled minstrel shows in Hannibal:

      I remember the first negro-minstrel show I ever saw. It must have been in the early ‘40s. It was a new institution. In our village of Hannibal, on the banks of the Mississippi, we had not heard of it before, and it burst upon us as a glad and stunning surprise.

      The show remained a week, and gave a performance every night. Church members did not attend these performances, but all the worldlings flocked to them, and were enchanted. …    

      The minstrels appeared with coal-black hands and faces, and their clothing was a loud and extravagant burlesque of the clothing worn by the plantation slave of the time….Standing collars were in fashion in that day, and the minstrel appeared in a collar which engulfed and hid the half of his head and projected so far forward that he could hardly see sideways over its points. His coat was sometimes made of curtain calico, with a swallow-tail that hung nearly to his heels and had buttons as big as a blacking box. His shoes were rusty, and clumsy, and cumbersome, and five or six sizes too large for him. There were many variations upon this costume, and they were all extravagant, and were by many believed to be funny.

      The minstrel used a very broad negro dialect; he used it competently, and with easy facility, and it was funny—delightfully and satisfyingly funny [AMT 2: 294]. Note: see source for more.

A later work by Clemens is “Villagers of 1840-3.” The MTP says this about it:

The Aberdeen (S.D.) Daily News, 4 Jan. 1905, p. 2, “Mark Twain’s Pranks” reported reminiscences by Captain H. Lacy, who was born in Hannibal in 1839. Lacy claims it was not Jim Wolfe who was the victim of the famous skeleton-in-bed prank (sometime in the 1840s), but “a tramp printer named Snell,” who “blew into Hannibal one day and was given work on the paper.” Lacy claimed to be along on the prank; his account offers not only a different victim than has been imagined (see MTL 1: 18n4; also Ch. 23 TA) but a different outcome:

      He was an uncommunicative sort of fellow, but a good worker and obedient. Sam decided to bring him out of his reserve and to do it borrowed a skeleton from a doctor’s office and slipped it into the printer’s bed. Then we got around to a window about bedtime to see what was going to happen. The print pulled off his shoes, piled his clothes over on the floor and blew out the light. The next thing we supposed would be a yell and a printer shooting out of the window in his nightshirt. But there wasn’t anything of the sort. There was a sleepy yawn and:

      “Get over on your own side, darn you.”

      We heard the ghastly bedmate of Snell fall to the floor, and then everything was quiet except for the snoring of the sleeping printer. The joke had failed, and we went up to our rooms in disgust.

Next day Snell didn’t show up, and we began to feel a little hopeful that maybe the trick had worked after all. But we were again disappointed. Snell was in a gin mill, boiling drunk and having the time of his life.

      “Killed erm man deader’n a red Injun,” he yelled, “an shell corpsus fer dollar an’ sheventy-five! Wow!”

      He had rolled the skeleton up in a sheet and sold it to another doctor!

The Chapman Troupe came through Hannibal annually in the 1840s until 1847. For 35 years the troupe was perhaps the most celebrated theatrical family in the West. Mary Parks Chapman (1813-1880) was one of the seven children in the show and later had 20! children herself. Sammy Clemens undoubtedly saw one or all of the Hannibal performances as they were advertised as children welcome [MTP]. Note: see Dec. 16, 1865 for a letter from Mary to Clemens.

See “A Memory” a sketch which ran in the Galaxy for Aug. 1870, about Sammy’s relationship to his father.

1840

U.S. Census reported 1,034 people living in Hannibal, up from the sixty families that were there in the Panic of 1837 [Wecter 57]. Hard times came to the Clemens family during the first years of the decade. Judge John Marshall Clemens was forced to sell Jennie, the slave girl brought from Virginia. “She was tall, well formed, nearly black, and brought a good price” [MTB 41]. For a time, things improved. John Marshall borrowed money from his wealthy cousin James Clemens, Jr. A wealthy Whig attorney in St. Louis, and from James A.H. Lampton (1824-1879), Jane’s half-brother who lived near Florida, Missouri. John Marshall opened another store with “already bookish, absent-minded, inept,” fifteen-year-old Orion behind the counter [Wecter 57].

Spring – Sam started school at Mrs. Horr’s school in Hannibal, a small log cabin at the southern end of Main Street, near Bear Creek. Elizabeth Horr (ca.1790-1873) and daughter Miss Lizzie were the only teachers. On Sam’s first day of school he broke a rule twice and was told to go find a switch for his punishment. He kept looking for smaller and smaller switches until he came back with a cooper’s shaving (a cooper is a barrel maker). Later, Miss Mary Ann Newcomb (1809-1894) would help at the school [Wecter 54]. Sam, during his last visit to Hannibal in 1902, would say: “I owe a great deal to Mary Newcomb, she compelled me to learn to read” [Wecter 84]. McGuffey’s Readers were the new rage.

In his Aug. 15, 1906 A.D. Sam recalled his first school: “There were no public schools in Hannibal in those early years, but there were two private schools in Hannibal—terms twenty-five cents per week per pupil, and collect it if you can. Mrs. Horr taught the children, in a small log house…; Mr. Sam Cross taught the young people of larger growth in a frame schoolhouse on the hill” [AMT 2: 177].

July 28 and 29 Wednesday – The Log Cabin Campaign rally on Market Street in Hannibal would surely have included John Marshall, a devout Whig. Jane Lampton Clemens loved parades and funerals. Four and a half year old Sam no doubt witnessed the celebration [Wecter 58]. Note: For more about Jane Clemens as recalled by her granddaughter Annie Moffett Webster in Fredonia, see May 22, 1870 entry.

October – John Marshall sold on credit about $1,000 for merchandise bought wholesale to one Ira Stout, who then used the new bankruptcy laws to avoid payment. Ultimately this led to the loss of the Clemens home [Wecter 56].

November 30 Monday – Sam’s fifth birthday.

1841

Sam’s father traveled to Tennessee hoping to collect old debts and raise money on the infamous Tennessee Land, some 75,000 acres, which became a millstone to the family; the land was ultimately sold in the 1880s for not much more than John Marshall paid for it. John took a slave, Charlie, to sell, but did not get what he expected. In fact the trip was a total failure, costing Sam’s father about $200 [Powers, Dangerous 124-5]. Together, John Marshall and son Orion had a remarkable string of business failures. Sam would come to nearly support his older brother, mixing a sense of duty with exasperation.

February 7 Sunday – Sam’s sister Pamela joined the First Presbyterian Church of Hannibal [Dempsey 55].

February 18 Thursday – Sam’s mother, Jane Clemens, joined the First Presbyterian Church of Hannibal [Dempsey 55]. Note: Dempsey found no record that John Marshall Clemens or his sons ever joined the church.

February 22 Monday – Sam’s mother, Jane Clemens, was baptized at the First Presbyterian Church of Hannibal [Dempsey 55].

September – John Marshall Clemens sat on a jury at Palmyra which condemned and sent to the penitentiary three abolitionists for a term of twelve years [Dempsey 42; Wecter 72]. Note: See Dempsey, chapters 5 & 6, for a full account of the “crime” and trial of James Burr, George Thompson, and Alanson Work, “the biggest criminal case in Marion County.”

October 13 Wednesday – The Clemenses were forced to transfer the title of their home property to James Kerr, a St. Louis dry-goods merchant to whom they were most indebted [Wecter 70]. Note: The indebtedness may have stemmed from funds John Marshall borrowed to buy the Tennessee Land, incurred before the family moved to Hannibal.

November 30 Tuesday – Sam’s sixth birthday.

1842

January 5 or 7 Friday – Sam’s father wrote on his failed trip of being unable to collect debts or even to sell Charlie for $40 in Vicksburg [MTB 43]. Powers suggests he sold Charlie for ten barrels of tar [Powers, Dangerous 124]. Wecter cites the letter date as Jan. 5 and the sale for tar as Jan. 24 [74].

May 12 Thursday – Ten-year-old Benjamin L. Clemens died after a weeklong, unexplained illness. “Bilious fever” they sometimes called such illnesses. Sam was six. He remembered his parents’ grief; Orion recalled that his parents kissed—the only time the Clemens children had seen them do this [MTB 44]; Powers writes that it was Sam who remembered; it’s likely both recalled the event. In her grief, Sam’s mother made all the children approach the bedside of Benjamin and touch his dead cheek. For Sam, this act left an impression, and once again, Sam felt partly responsible for a family death.

Sam’s father, already a judge, was elected justice of the peace, but fees were few and far between. (Powers: “probably in 1842”; Paine [MTB 41] states this was in 1840, Wecter [103] also in 1842).

July 17 Sunday ca. – (After this day) – Sam’s brother, Orion, now seventeen and a “very good journeyman printer,” obtained a position in St. Louis, and was able to send support home for the family, three dollars out of ten per week [MTB 44]. (Powers characterizes it as Orion being “sent off.”) Orion wrote home that he was trying to imitate the life of Benjamin Franklin, even to the extent of living on bread and water. While in St. Louis until 1849, Orion made friends with attorney Edward Bates (1793-1869) and began studying law in his office. Bates would later secure Orion an appointment as secretary to the Nevada Territory, a connection that led Sam west and into history [170].

August 12 Friday – Though a boy of nearly seven, Sam probably was witness to the sinking of the side wheel steamboat Glaucus at Hannibal. Such an event would have brought the whole town out to gawk. Sam noted the sinking in his notebook in 1883 [MTNJ 3: 30n52].

October 13 Thursday – Exactly one year before, John Marshall and Jane Clemens lost their real estate in Hannibal, interest being transferred to James Kerr, St. Louis merchant and debt holder. On this day the property was auctioned but failed to meet the amount of the debt [Dempsey 49].

November 30 Wednesday – Sam’s seventh birthday.

1843

Sam’s father caught him in a lie. John Marshall Clemens did not often punish his children, for his stern mien often did the trick. The family had made one or two moves since coming to Hannibal, and Sam recalled his father’s punishment in a house they’d only been in a year. During 1843 Sam’s father was building the family a new house [MTB 44]. Some sources site 1844 for the move in.

Sam attended his second Sunday school in the basement of the Presbyterian Church. The first had been for two or three years prior in “a shabby little brick Methodist church on the public square called the Old Ship of Zion” [Wecter 86].

Summer – This was the first year of long summer visits to the Quarles Farm, about three and a half miles northwest of the old Clemens home in Florida, Mo.. These visits would continue until Sam was eleven or twelve (1847-8). Sam was seven on this first visit. He loved his uncle John Quarles, a warm, affable, hospitable, country man who told jolly jokes and played with the children. Quarles made hunting trips through the woods. His wife Aunt Patsy set a marvelous table; they had eight children and about thirty slaves (some sources say far fewer). These idyllic summers were grist for many of Sam’s later stories. Sam had a favorite playmate cousin a year younger than him, Tabitha Quarles (1836-1917), they called “Puss.” He loved cats (his mother had at one time nineteen felines about!). Puss recalled:

When he arrived at the farm father would lift his big carpet bag out of the wagon and then would come Sam with a basket in his hand. The basket he would allow no one except himself to carry. In the basket would be his pet cat. This he had trained to sit beside himself at the table. He would play contentedly with a cat for hours, and his cats were very fond of him and very patient when he tried to teach them tricks [Wecter 92].

Significant was Sam’s exposure and relationship with the Negroes, especially with Aunt Hanner, Uncle Dan’l (b.1805?) and Uncle Ned, the latter a slave of his father’s in the Florida days, and the source of the “Golden Arm” story [Wecter 46].

“It was on the farm that I got my strong liking for the race, and my appreciation of certain of its fine qualities” [Nieder 6].

Sam made a sketch of Uncle Dan’l, using that name in The Gilded Age. He later acknowledged that the Dan’l was the model for Huck’s friend Jim. Lorch writes “it was probably from John Quarles that Mark Twain first heard the Jumping Frog story, an ancestral version of the one he later heard in the barroom at Angel’s Camp in California” [Nieder 10].

September 4 Monday – Sam played hooky from school and got home at night, so he climbed into his father’s first floor office, only to discover a corpse, James McFarland, a local farmer stabbed by Vincent Hudson in a drunken argument about a plow. Since John Marshall Clemens was a judge, the body was taken to his office to be embalmed the next day. This was the first recorded murder in Hannibal [Wecter 104].

October 27 Friday – James Kerr, as trustee, sold the Clemens home to James Clemens Jr., of St. Louis, a cousin of John Marshall Clemens. The price on the abstract was $300. The legal description: “the west 20 feet and 6 inches of the east 101 feet of lot 1 in block 9 in the original town of Hannibal” [Hannibal Courier-Post, Mar. 6, 1935 p10b].

Late Fall – On Mar. 11, 1883 the N.Y. Times, p.4 ran an article, “Judge Clemens” and attributed it from “Communication to the St. Louis Missouri Republican.” The article described John Marshall Clemens as a “stern unbending man of splendid common-sense, and was, indeed, the autocrat of the little dingy room on Bird-street, where he held his court” [as Justice of the Peace]. An excerpt: 

Late in the Fall of 1843 the case of Allen B. McDonald against Jacob Smith was on trial. Judge Clemens was presiding with his usual dignity, and the court-room was filled with witnesses and friends of the parties to the suit. The Hon. R.F. Lakenan, still living and in political life, represented the plaintiff, and old “Horse” Allen, now dead, was counsel for defendant. Frank Snyder, a peaceable citizen, had given his testimony in favor of defendant Smith, and resumed his seat, when McDonald, with an exasperating air, made a face at him. As quick as thought Snyder whipped out an old pepper-box revolver and emptied every barrel at McDonald, slightly grazing Mc’s head with one shot, hurting no one else, but filling the room with smoke and consternation. In the confusion that followed, Judge Clemens, doubtless remembering McDonald’s many mean tricks, instantly concluded that he was the aggressor, and gathering up a hammer that lay near by, he dealt him a blow that sent him senseless and quivering to the floor. The irate court was complete master of the situation. 

Note: Wecter p.104-5 and notes, takes issue with some of the details of the Republican’s story, noting that “R.F. Lakenan did not come to Hannibal to practice law until two years after the date of the incident. Other versions appear in HMC, p.914 [Holcombe’s History of Marion County, Missouri] and Paine, Biography, p.45. In MTP, DV 47, ‘Villagers,’ Mark Twain writes: ‘Judge Carpenter [Clemens] knocked McDonald down with a mallet and saved Charley Schneider,’ and in another note refers to ‘McDonald the desperado (plasterer).’” 

November 30 Thursday – Sam’s eighth birthday.

December – The Clemens family moved out of the Virginia House and into 206 Hill Street, which forever more would be considered Sam’s boyhood home. Sam shared a second-story bedroom with his brother Henry [Powers, MT A Life 34].

1844

Hannibal by 1844 took pride in four general stores, three sawmills, two planing mills, three blacksmith shops, two hotels, three saloons, two churches, two schools, a tobacco factory, a hemp factory, and a tan yard, as well as a flourishing distillery up at the still house branch. West of the village lay “Stringtown,” so called because its cabins and stock pens were strung out along the road. Small industry was the lifeblood of the town [Wecter 60].

The Clemenses had moved into Sam’s boyhood home, built by his father on Hill Street in Hannibal. Across the street lived the Hawkins family. Laura Hawkins (Frazer) (1837-1928), a blonde daughter, was a romantic interest of young Sam’s. She later became the model for Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom Blankenship was a friend of Sam’s who lived up Hill Street. The Blankenships were infamous drunks and ne’er-do-wells; Sam based Huck on Tom Blankenship, a model for rebelliousness in the face of all authority [Powers, MT A life 34].

Will Bowen (1836-1893) later became a steamboat pilot with Sam, and the two would maintain a unique correspondence and relationship throughout their lives. Will had an older brother Barton (1830?-1868) and a younger brother Sam (1838?-1878).

October 22 Tuesday – Sam watched worshippers from the Millerite sect (led by William Miller) wrap themselves in robes and climb the steep hill to Lover’s Leap, expecting the world to end. In his visit back to Hannibal in 1902, Sam and pal John Briggs (1837-1907) went up Holliday’s Hill and pointed over the valley.

“There is where the Millerites put on their robes one night to go up to heaven. None of them went that night John but no doubt many of them have gone since” [Wecter 89].

September 14 Saturday – Henry, a Negro, was tried and convicted in Judge Clemens’ court of “menacing” with a knife. State law prohibited slaves from having weapons. John Marshall Clemens found Henry guilty and imposed punishment of 20 lashes to be given publicly. Dempsey writes, “Nine-year-old Sam liked to play about Hannibal on pretty fall days. A public whipping would have been high entertainment in 1844 Hannibal” [54].

November 30 Saturday – Sam’s ninth birthday (he didn’t want to be called “Sammy” any longer.) In his 1906 Autobiography, Sam claimed to be a private smoker from age nine, and a public one after his father’s death, in 1847 [Neider 43].

1845

1845 – From Sam’s Autobiography:

I recall Mary Miller. She was not my first sweetheart, but I think she was the first one that furnished me with a broken heart. I fell in love with her when she was eighteen and I nine—but she scorned me, and I recognized this was a cold world….I soon transferred my worship to Artimisia Briggs, who was a year older than Mary Miller. When I revealed my passion to her she did not scoff at it. She did not make fun of it. She was very kind and gentle about it. But she was also firm, and said she did not want to be pestered by children.

And there was Mary Lacy. She was a schoolmate. But she was also out of my class because of her advanced age. She was pretty wild and determined and independent. She was ungovernable, and was considered incorrigible. But that was all a mistake. She married, and at once settled down and became in all ways a model matron…[AMT 2: 212-13].

January 24 Friday – Sam witnessed the premeditated murder of “Uncle” Samuel Smarr (1788?-1845), shot at close range by William P. Owsley. Smarr was carried into the drugstore of Dr. Orville Grant, the very house that poverty would soon force the Clemens to move into. Sam squeezed into the room where they laid the dying Smarr and watched [Wecter 106]. Note: The scene would be grist for Colonel Sherburn’s cold-blooded killing of Boggs, the town drunk, in chapters 21-22 of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

February 24 Monday – Hannibal, Mo. was granted a city charter [Hannibal Courier-Post, Mar. 6, 1935 p10b].

[https://www.hannibal.lib.mo.us/about_the_library.htm].

Summer – Sam stowed away on a steamboat headed south. He was found by a crewmember and put ashore thirty miles down river, at the town of Louisiana, Mo. There he spent the night with Lampton relatives. The next day they returned him home.

August 24 Sunday – In Hannibal, John Marshall Clemens wrote to Orion in St. Louis. He enclosed a course of twenty oral lectures on grammar by Professor Hull. John was taking Hull’s class and promised to outline the material and send it on to Orion, who might benefit in the printer’s trade from such lessons. Sam was nearly ten years old and probably received the same instruction at home [MTBus 9-10].

August 25-26 Tuesday – The Philadelphia North America reported on Aug. 26, “Affray at Hannibal, Mo.”—a fight between Dr. Orville R. Grant and a man named Railey, who stabbed Grant with a spear attached to his cane. In his Dec. 2, 1906 A.D. Sam recalled the man’s name as Dr. Reyburn [AMT 2: 590].

Fall – In either 1844 or 1845, Sam left the dame school for a “good common school” on Center Street near the town square, taught by a middle-aged Irishman, William O. Cross [Powers, D. Waters 93].

November 6 Thursday – Record of Jimmy Finn’s death [MTP].

November 30 Sunday – Sam’s tenth birthday.

1846

Hard times forced the family to move in with Dr. Orville R. Grant’s family (above Grant’s Drug store; Grant 1815?-1854). Jane Clemens cooked for both families in exchange for rent. For more on the Grant family see AMT 2: 590].

John Marshall Clemens led a civic group organizing a rail line from Hannibal to St. Joseph. The line was chartered and completed twelve years after his death.

March 14 Saturday – William P. Owsley, was acquitted of murdering Samuel Smarr by a Palmyra jury. [Wecter 108]. 

Summer – Cholera claimed 30 lives in Hannibal. Many fled the town [Wecter 213].

August – Hannibal slave dealer William Beebe sued and gained a judgment against John Marshall Clemens for $126.50 stemming from debts for the store [Wecter 112]. 

September 10 Thursday – John Marshall Clemens wrote to Buffum & Co., in New York concerning sale of the Tennessee Land. John had canceled the agency of Meredith & McCullough and gave “exclusive sale of my Tennessee lands for two years on the terms propose.—That you will be at the expense of agencies and advertising as in your letter mentioned; and will make sales as speedily and advantageously as possible” [MTBus 11]. Note: The Tennessee Land created a rift between Sam and Orion in later years, and hung around the family’s neck until the 1880s.

October 16 Friday – James Clemens, Jr. leased the Hill Street house to Orion Clemens for a period of 25 years at a rental of $28 per year [Hannibal Courier-Post, Mar. 6, 1935 p10b].

November – John Marshall Clemens chaired a citizens’ committee to promote a macadamized road between Hannibal and St. Joseph, Mo. [Wecter 110]. 

Henry La Cossitt, new to Hannibal, established the Democratic Gazette [Wecter 201]. Note: Wecter surmises that Sam Clemens was briefly an apprentice for the Gazette.

November 5 Thursday – Hannibal Gazette announced John Marshall Clemens’ candidacy for clerk of the circuit court in 1847’s election.

November 6 Thursday – County records show $8.25 for coffin Jimmy Finn, pauper, town drunk and model for Huck Finn’s Pap [Wecter 150].

November 30 Monday – Sam’s eleventh birthday.

Winter of 1846-7 – Now president of the Hannibal Library Institute, John Marshall Clemens worked for the establishment of a Masonic college in Hannibal [Wecter 111]. 

December 17 Thursday – Hannibal slave dealer William Beebe was granted a writ of attachment ordering the sheriff to sell “the goods and chattels and real estate of the said John M. Clemens” [Wecter 112].

1847

In his Dec. 2, 1906 A.D., Clemens recalled their house:

In 1847 we were living in a large white house on the corner of Hill and Main streets—a house that still stands, but isn’t large now, although it hasn’t lost a plank; I saw it a year ago and noticed that shrinkage. My father died in it in March of the year mentioned, but our family did not move out of it until some months afterward. Ours was not the only family in the house, there was another, Dr. Grant’s [AMT 2: 301].

March 11 Thursday – John Marshall Clemens rode to the village of Palmyra (the county seat) to attend a judicial hearing that would clear him in a debt matter. Riding home he was chilled by a sleet storm. He became ill from the shock to his system. Judge Ezra Hunt of the Circuit Court at Palmyra “accepted John M. Clemens’ reasonable plea that his own unpaid claims against Beebe be considered as an offset to Beebe’s demands upon him—and with that decision the case fades from the records” [Wecter 112]. John Marshall may have traveled to Palmyra for this particular hearing [115].

March 24 Wednesday – John Marshall Clemens died of pneumonia at the age of 49. Paine gives some of John’s last words: “Cling to the land,” he whispered. “Cling to the land, and wait. Let nothing beguile it away from you” [MTB 73].

Orion’s comments about his father were included in Sam’s Jan. 29, 1907 A.D. In part:

My father may have hastened the ending of his life by the use of too much medicine. He doctored himself from my earliest remembrance. During the latter part of his life he bought Cook’s pills by the box and took one or more daily [AMT 2: 409]. Note: Cook’s Pills were a combination of strong laxatives used to treat many ailments.

Sam recalled never having heard his father laugh, and seeing the only kiss his father had given in his presence, a deathbed kiss to Sam’s sister Pamela. The stern, hardworking aspect of Sam’s father underlined the influence he received from his mother. That night, through the keyhole, Sam and Orion witnessed an “autopsy” (or, some sort of post-mortem examination) of his father, a traumatizing event [Powers, MT A Life 43]. Fanning posits the exam took place due to Jane’s suspicions that John Marshall had contracted a venereal disease [14]. (See June 14, 1880 entry on Howell’s reaction to Orion’s lost autobiography.)

March 25 Thursday – John Marshall Clemens was buried in the Old Baptist Cemetery a mile and a half from Hannibal. Sam walked in his sleep this night and a few others. In 1876 John Marshall and Henry Clemens were later transferred to the newer Mount Olivet Cemetery, southwest of Hannibal [Wecter 118-9]. The following obituary ran in the Hannibal Gazette:

      Died in this city on yesterday, the 24th inst., after a protracted and painful illness, John M. Clemens, Esq., in the 49th year of his age.

      Unwelcome and awful the visits of death always are. But in this instance, he has not only overwhelmed a family in grief—he has filled a community with sorrow.

      Judge Clemens has been for many years a citizen of North Eastern Missouri and of Hannibal. He had been honored by several public stations which he filled with credit to himself and advantage to the community. He was noted for his good sense and a clear discriminating mind. These added to a high sense of justice and moral rectitude, made him a man of uncommon influence and usefulness. His public spirit was exercised zealously and with effect upon every proper occasion. His efforts to establish a library and institute of learning in our city were such as to entitle him to all commendation, and his untimely death is felt on this account as well as many others as a loss to the whole community….As a good and useful citizen, a lover of his kind, and an honest man, John M. Clemens will hold a place in the recollection of all who knew him [Hannibal Courier-Post, Mar. 6, 1935 p.13C].

April – A torchlight parade celebrated victories in the Mexican War. Sam no doubt was there, watching the pomp and a huge transparency showing “Old Zac at Buena Vista.” A band played and the streets were full of cheering townspeople [Wecter 123].

April 12 Monday – Orion leased the house on Hill Street from James Clemens, Jr. , a wealthy St. Louis cousin, who bought some of John Marshall’s property [Wecter 102]. Jane and children moved back into the Hill Street house. Sister Pamela, (named for an aunt and sometimes spelled “Pamelia,” and always pronounced as such) now twenty, had been giving piano and guitar lessons in the villages of Florida and Paris, Mo. (Sam became proficient in both) She moved back to take care of her mother Jane.

From Sam’s 1906 recollection of his schoolmates:

I remember Andy Fuqua, the oldest pupil—a man of twenty-five. I remember the youngest pupil, Nannie Owsley, a child of seven. I remember George RoBards, eighteen or twenty years old, the only student who studied Latin. I remember vaguely the rest of the twenty-five boys and girls. I remember Mr. Dawson very well. I remember his boy, Theodore, who was as good as he could be. In fact he was inordinately good, extravagantly good, offensively good, detestably good—and he had pop-eyes—and I would have drowned him if I had had a chance. In that school we were all about on an equality, and, so far as I remember, the passion of envy had no place in our hearts, except in the case of Arch Fuqua—the other one’s brother. Of course we all went barefoot in the summertime. Arch Fuqua was about my own age—ten or eleven…He was our envy, for he could double back his big toe and let it fly and you could hear it snap thirty yards. There was not another boy in the school that could approach this feat. He had not a rival as regards a physical distinction—except in Theodore Eddy, who could work his ears like a horse. But he was no rival, because you couldn’t hear him work his ears; so all the advantage lay with Arch Fuqua [MTA 2: 179-80]. Note: Archibald Fuqua (b.1833?).

April 23 Friday – The Marion County Court appointed Orion administrator of John Marshall Clemens’ estate [Wecter 120]. 

Spring and Summer – Sam clerked in a grocery store until he was fired for eating too much sugar. He enrolled at Dawson’s School a few weeks after the death of his father. He worked many odd jobs during these months. He clerked for a bookstore, delivered newspapers, helped out at a blacksmith’s, and even studied law, but gave it up “because it was so prosy and tiresome” [Ch. 42 of Roughing It; Wecter131].

May 6 Thursday – The Hannibal Gazette reported that Sparhawk & Layton were giving nightly lectures and demonstrations at Hawkins’ saloon on “human magnetism” (hypnosis). Such subjects as mesmerizing and phrenology excited the town when “experts” arrived. In a few years Sam would engage in outdoing another boy who’d been put in a trance. See AMT 2: 589.

May 21 Friday – An appraisal of John Marshall Clemens’ property was filed in Marion County. The most valuable item was “6 volumes Nicholsons Encyclopedia.” Orion inherited the volumes, which went to Sam’s library after Orion and Mollie’s deaths [Gribben 507].

August 13 Friday – One of Sam’s playmates, Clint Levering, age ten, drowned after falling out of an empty flatboat while playing with “a number of his playmates.” Sam was no doubt among these boys, as he remembered the tragedy in his notebook and wrote of it in Life on the Mississippi, Chapter 54, where Sam called him “Lem Hackett.” (See May 13, 1882 entry.)

August 19 Thursday – Reported in the Hannibal Journal: While exploring on Sny Island and Bird Slough with pals John Briggs and Will Bowen, the boys went wading. Tom Blankenship’s older brother “Bence” Blankenship had discovered a runaway slave, Neriam Todd, hiding on the island weeks before, and had secreted food to him until a group of men chased the slave into the water and lost him. When the boys waded, “suddenly the negro rose before them, straight and terrible, about half the length out of the water.” Thinking the corpse was after them, the boys fled in terror [Wecter 148].

November 30 Tuesday – Sam’s twelfth birthday.

1848

February 19 Saturday – Orion made a temperance speech in Hannibal [Wecter 294n5].

May 3 Wednesday – 24-year-old Joseph Ament purchased the Hannibal Gazette and moved his Missouri Courier to Hannibal. He established his newspaper in the second-floor Gazette offices on Main Street, over Brittingham’s Drugstore [Dempsey 155]. The merged papers went under the name of the Hannibal Gazette [Benson 2].

June – The family now in worse financial straits than ever, Sam landed his first full-time job as a printer’s devil for the Missouri Courier, owned by Joseph P. Ament. He worked only a half block from the family home. The journalism field has prepared many a great writer, and typesetting words is where Sam Clemens got his start. A printer’s devil made up pages one letter at a time. Sam was paid meals only and two suits of clothes a year, but got only one, a suit way too big for him. “I had to turn up his pants to my ears just to make them short enough.” Wecter gives the date as “the end of May or beginning of June” [202].

Sam would be an apprentice for two years. During this time he worked with Thomas P. “Pet” McMurry,  a journeyman printer in his twenties; and apprentices William T. League (1832-1870), Richard Rutter, and Wales R. McCormick, “a large lad of eighteen whose hilarious sense of humor, practical jokes, and stories amused and sometimes irritated Sam” [Lorch 11; Dempsey 155]. Note: see Sam’s 1906 remembrance of Wales, MTA 2: 276; also his Dec. 3, 1907 to W.H. Powell, which mentions these and others.

Summer – Either this summer or the prior was the last year of annual visits to Quarles Farm near Florida, Mo These visits to the farm where hunting was allowed (the Clemens boys were never allowed guns), food was bountiful, and Sam thought the slaves (who were never sold or split up from families) were the most joyous people in his boyhood [Wecter 91].

October 12 Thursday – The Hannibal Gazette, where Sam was apprenticing, changed its name to the Missouri Courier [Benson 2]

November 30 Thursday – Sam’s thirteenth birthday.

1849

Sometime this year, Sam found a page in the street about Joan of Arc, which began his fascination with the figure. Younger brother Henry told Sam about the young maid’s life and fiery end (Wecter cites Isabel Van Kleek Lyon (1868-1958), Mark Twain’s secretary in his later years, as claiming Sam consulted his mother about Joan of Arc). Nevertheless, the chance find of a loose page sparked a desire to read and learn everything he could about medieval history [Wecter 211]. Note: It’s possible this find ultimately sparked Prince and the Pauper as well as Connecticut Yankee. Sam considered his book on Joan his best work.

A group of Hannibal citizens led by Samuel Cross left for California and the gold rush.

On October 3, 1902 Clemens wrote William Dean Howells that he “ran away twice; once at about 13, & once at 17. There is not much satisfaction in it, even as a recollection. It was a couple of disappointments, particularly the first one” [MTHL 2: 746]. Note: the runaway at age 13 would have been in 1849.

Sam assigns this year to an ice-skating episode with Tom Nash, the postmaster’s son. Tom fell in the river in a desperate attempt to regain the shore. Sam writes,

“He took to his bed, sick, and had a procession of diseases. The closing one was scarlet fever, and he came out if it stone deaf” [MTA 2: 97-8].

Summer, early – Hannibal suffered from a cholera epidemic.

Fall –Sam remembered in his Autobiography the scene of practicing for his part as a bear in his sister’s autumn party. He’d chosen a vacant house to try out moves for his part, and went there with a “little black boy, Sandy….” Not noticing a screen in the corner and costumes on a hook, Sam pranced about in his birthday suit until “a smothered burst of feminine snickers” came from the other side of the screen, which had enough holes to make it interesting for the voyeurs. After a clamorous escape, Sam avoided girls for several weeks. He would discover the identity of one of the peepers 47 years later, in Calcutta, India [MTA 1: 127-9].

September, first week – The telegraph came to Hannibal. Dempsey calls the event Hannibal’s “technological coming of age.” Before the telegraph, news came from boats from St. Louis or across the river in Quincy, Illinois. The intersection of Main and Hill Streets became known as “Telegraph Corner” [Dempsey 125]. At the Courier, Sam was well regarded, and was put in charge of gathering telegraph information on the Mexican War and other news that came over the wire [Benson 6-7].

October 26 Friday – The U.S. Senator from Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1858) was an “occasional visitor to town,” and on this day gave a “large rally of Hannibalians in fiery vein.” Wecter notes that “Sam Clemens shared Tom Sawyer’s emotions when the ‘greatest man in the world…Mr. Benton, an actual United States Senator, proved an overwhelming disappointment—for he was not twenty-five feet high’ ” [Wecter 195].

October 30 Tuesday – The date of the horrendous attack by a slave named Ben, owned by Thomas Glasscock (Glascock), a Marion County farmer, upon twelve-year-old Susan Bright, and her ten-year-old brother Thomas Bright, who were looking for walnuts in the woods. See Dempsey, chapter 13 for a full account [Dempsey 126].

November 8 Thursday – “Glasscock’s Ben” was accused of killing Thomas Bright with a rock, then raping his twelve-year-old sister, Susan Bright, and mutilating her. He was hanged early the next year.

Yellow fever hit Hannibal in early winter, as well as another siege of cholera [Wecter 214].

November 30 Friday – Sam’s fourteenth birthday.

December 4 Tuesday – “Glasscock’s Ben” was convicted and sentenced to be hanged on Jan. 11, 1850 [Dempsey 130].

December 6 Thursday – Joseph P. Ament’s newspaper printed a long account of the Glasscock’s Ben trial. The Negro was found guilty and sentenced to death. Sam was a printer devil at Ament’s Missouri Courier. Two comic verses (“Amalgamation here we view,…” and “Abigail Brown, with a span new gown….”) ran with marriage announcements and a note that the printer was “duly remembered.” Branch attributes these to Sam [“Chronological” 113].

Aunt Patsy Passes – Orion the Newspaperman

Sam had four different schoolteachers in Hannibal: Mrs. Horr, Miss Newcomb, J.D. Dawson, and William O. Cross [Wecter 211]. Wecter concludes that the chance find of a page about Joan of Arc seemed to stimulate Sam to learn more than all these teachers put together [211]. Paine says that Sam learned a little German by ear from the village shoemaker, briefly tackled Latin, and about five years later was teaching himself French. Paine also writes that Sam claimed to have read the Bible through “before I was 15 years old” [MTB 1281].

Music, often in church, was part of Sam’s early years. Here are two inserts of an 1869 Song Book, annotated some 20 years later, by Clemens. Many of these he heard in 1850. Designated as 1850 are A Life on the Ocean Wave, A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea, Bell Brandon, By the Blue Alsatian Mountains, and Larboard Watch:

January 11 Friday – Glasscock’s Ben Negro was hanged before a huge crowd—the first legal execution in the history of Marion County. In Villagers of 1840-3 Sam wrote in 1897:

“The Hanged Nigger. He raped and murdered a girl of 13 in the woods. He confessed to forcing three young women in Virginia, and was brought away in a feather bed to save his life—which was a valuable property” [Wecter 215].

Note: Dempsey writes, “there is no evidence in the court records or newspaper accounts that Ben killed anyone in Virginia or that he was too valuable to be hanged there…This story seems to be an invention of Clemens’s, which, like other of his inventions, occasionally shows up in history books” [131].

January 29 Tuesday – Yellow fever still raged in Hannibal. Sam’s sister Pamela wrote Orion in St. Louis:

“I suppose you have not been attacked with the yellow fever, that by the way is raging so her that it is feared it will carry off nearly half the inhabitants, if it does [not] indeed depopulate the town. In consequence of it many of our best citizens intend starting for California so soon as they can make preparations” [Wecter 214].

January 30 Wednesday – Jane Clemens wrote Orion about the availability of the Hannibal Journal, a paper her late husband had always wanted to buy [Wecter 224].

April – Sam joined the “Cadets of Temperance” in order to wear the regalia and march in parades. The organization began about May 1847, with a cadet branch opening three years after. During the late 1840s, temperance crusades were common in the country. A requirement of cadets was to abstain from drinking, swearing, and smoking. Sam joined to wear the uniforms and march in the May Day and Fourth of July parades. Then he quit, counting it too high a price to pay. Sam would try several times in his life to quit smoking, but was always unsuccessful. He later professed that the only sensible rule of abstinence was never to smoke more than one cigar at a time. The roster of Cadets included Henry Clemens, Tom Nash (b.1835?), Jimmy McDaniel, John D. Meredith (1837-1870), and others. Sam’s name on the roster was marked “withd” meaning “withdrew” [Wecter 153-4]. Note: Dr. Meredith had two sons, John D. (above) and Charles (b.1833?) [MTP].

April 6 Saturday – Arnold Buffum wrote Pamela Clemens that the price of the Tennessee Land had gone down to ten cents per acre. Pamela forwarded the letter to Orion in St. Louis, saying “Ma thinks you had better accept Buffum’s proposal and let him sell a portion of the land in that way, say half or more, limiting him to the quantity.” Pamela was suspicious that Buffum simply wanted the land for himself [MTBus 17]. John Marshall Clemens had placed great hope for the family’s future in the land he paid four or five hundred for in the 1830s, and even cautioned them to hang on to it on his deathbed. Orion may have simply been inept, or failed to sell the land out of respect to his dead father.

April 11 Thursday – Sam witnessed a killing on this date.

“…the young California emigrant who was stabbed with a bowie knife by a drunken comrade; I saw the red life gush from his breast” [Wecter 219].

May – A traveling mesmerizer (hypnotist) stopped in Hannibal for a two-week show. Sam volunteered to be a subject, but unlike another boy, failed to go under. When Sam saw all the attention that others got when hypnotized he volunteered again and went along with a ruse that fooled everyone. He even allowed himself to be stuck with needles without flinching, convincing even his mother [Neider 50-58]. Well, Sam could easily fool his mother about many things (or thought he could).

May 1 Wednesday – Sam marched in the May Day parade with the Cadets of Temperance [Wecter 153].

May 3 Friday – A fragment of the Tennessee Land was sold for $50. Orion may have used this money and savings to start a new paper in Hannibal in September [Wecter 225].

June 27 Thursday – “Doing’ a Dandy,” a sketch of Sam’s ran in Ament’s Courier under the pseudonym of “Fred Ballard” [Wecter 247].

Summer – Orion returned to Hannibal [Wecter 225].

July 4 Thursday – Sam marched in the parade with the Cadets of Temperance, and later recollected that he picked up a cigar butt from the street, smoked it, and quit the group [Wecter 153].

July 23 Tuesday – Aunt Martha Ann (Patsy) Quarles died. She was Jane Lampton Clemens’ sister. Less than two years later, John Quarles sold his farm [Wecter 290n20].

September 6 Friday – Orion began printing the Hannibal Western Union, a weekly Whig newspaper. Sam probably continued working for Joseph Ament the first few months Orion established the newspaper [Wecter 225]. Note: Dempsey gives the date as Sept. 5 [158].

November 14 Thursday – The Hannibal Western Union printed an article, “Humorous Content Upon the Excellence of a Wedding Cake,” byline “Devil,” attributed by Branch to Sam Clemens [Branch, “Chronological” 113].

November 29 Friday – Sam had his picture taken holding the typestick containing “SAM” on the eve of his fifteenth birthday [MTP].

November 30 Saturday – Sam’s fifteenth birthday.

Sister Pamela Married Well – Part of Tennessee Land Sold

January – Sam ended his commitment to Joseph Ament of the Missouri Courier and went to work with brother Henry for Orion, who promised him a salary of $3.50 a week. Orion was never able to pay Sam a penny. Orion secured cousin Dr. Jim Lampton and uncle John Quarles as sales agents [A. Hoffman 28]. Sam served Orion daily as a printer and editorial assistant. Sam’s attitude toward his older brother was established in the period of his work on the Courier. Wecter called his attitude “a mixture of affection and contempt, which later days hardened into an amalgam of generosity and sadism” [Wecter 225-6].

January 9 Thursday – A fire broke out one door from the print shop where Sam worked with brothers Orion, Henry, and a newcomer who was the butt of many of Sam’s practical jokes, Jim Wolfe. This episode was the basis for a humorous sketch printed a week later [Wecter 236].

January 16 Thursday – Sam began his new position on Orion’s newspaper; he wrote a comic piece, “A Gallant Fireman,” lampooning Jim Wolfe, their new apprentice and his dim-witted reaction to a minor fire at a shop next door to the Western Union [ET&S 1: 61]. (Note: Dempsey cites this article as the first known authored by Sam [158].) Sam tried to add vigor to the paper by using local color and frontier language, while Orion filled the paper with moralistic pieces, dull compositions and summaries of national news. The brothers, so different in temperament and style, created conflict which doomed collaboration on the newspaper. As the man of the family, Orion tried to exert control over Sam, but was feckless in the face of the challenge; Sam was bound not to accept any such control.

May – A municipal ordinance passed forcing farmers to sell their eggs through the city market. Sam put a letter to the editor in the Hannibal Western Union sarcastically praising this “most eggscellent, eggs-plicit, eggs-travagant and eggs-traordinary ordinance.” Throughout the summer, Sam attempted to inject humor, local interest and pep into Orion’s otherwise dull newspaper [Wecter 239].

June 5 Thursday – Orion’s newspaper, the Hannibal Journal, reported on this day that steamboats “were burying their passengers at every wood yard, both from cabin and deck.” Cholera had hit the river again, claiming 24 citizens of Hannibal [Wecter 214].

July 10 Thursday – The Hannibal Western Union printed an unsigned article, “The New Costume,” attributed to Sam [Camfield, bibliog.]. It seems likely that Sam wrote other sketches and articles for Orion’s paper, now lost. Note: Dempsey attributes the article to “one of the Clemens boys” [209].

August 28 Thursday – The last day the Hannibal Western Union printed under that name [Benson 7].

August, late – Orion took over the Hannibal Journal from “Big Joe” Buchanan’s son, “Little Joe.” Big Joe went to California in the spring of 1850 with his brother Robert [Wecter 239, 223]. Note: Robert (1802-1875), Joseph S. Buchanan (b.1806) [MTP].

September 4 Thursday – Orion, from his old office on Bird Street, brought out the first issue of the consolidated Hannibal Journal and Western Union [Wecter 239]. Five months later the name was shortened. Orion had acquired the extinct Hannibal Weekly Dollar Journal which ran a few months in 1849-50 (by Robert Buchanan and Samuel Raymond), as well as the subscription list, and so named the paper from the Hannibal Western Union to the Hannibal Western Union and Journal, and to the shorter, Hannibal Journal [Dempsey 136].

September 9 Tuesday – Orion shortened the name of his weekly paper from the Hannibal Journal and Western Union to the Hannibal Journal [Benson 7].

September 20 Saturday – Sister Pamela (Pamelia), who just turned 24 a week before, married well on this day. Her new husband, William Anderson Moffett (1816-1865) was a successful Hannibal merchant who sold out his interests and moved with his new wife to St. Louis where he established a successful wholesale business. With the growth of Western Territories, St. Louis grew rapidly. The pair married in Green County, Kentucky. Pamela was visiting her Aunt Pamelia and Will Moffett was traveling to visit his Virginia relatives for the first time since he and his brother had left home. Since they had planned a trip to Niagara Falls, they decided to combine the trips [MTBus 19].

Fall – The Clemens family received notice of the sale of part of their Tennessee Land, the asset that the late John Marshall Clemens had put so much faith in. The farmer who purchased the land then discovered it unfit to farm, so Orion went to Tennessee to resolve the issue. His trip took two months and was a total failure. Soon after his return the Journal office burned. Orion moved it to the Hill Street house where the family lived; they all got the paper back up and running [A. Hoffman 29].

Colonel Edward Zane Carroll Judson (1823-1886), who wrote under the pseudonym of Ned Buntline, came to Hannibal to lecture on “Cuba and Her Martyrs.” Judson was the author of The Black Avenger of the Spanish Main, to which Sam referred in his sketch “Jul’us Caesar” and also in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer [Wecter 195; Gribben 362]. Note: Fifteen year old Sam Clemens would undoubtedly have seen Judson speak, having read his “dime novel” works, which Sam later called “Wildcat Literature.” Judson’s arrival was heralded by Orion’s Hannibal Journal.

November 30 Sunday – Sam’s sixteenth birthday.

December 29 Monday – A piece by Orion datelined “Near Glasgow, Ky., Dec. 29, 1851” ran in the Journal on Jan. 22, 1852 upon Orion’s return, showing that he left Hannibal on his fruitless trip to Tennessee, somewhat before this date, probably just after Christmas [Wecter 242].

Final Appearance in the Hannibal Journal

January 8 Thursday – “The Editor is absent,” announced the Hannibal Journal editorial. Orion was still away [Wecter 242].

January 15 Thursday – “The Editor is still absent” [Wecter 242].

January 22 Thursday – Orion announced his return in the paper [Wecter 242].

January 29 Thursday – The Journal was able to beat the other town papers to a story about a fire—this one in the Journal office. Orion collected insurance money and soon restarted the paper. The Journal, like most of Orion’s endeavors, never made a profit [Wecter 243]. On page 2 of the Hannibal Journal and Western Union a lot of Orion Clemens’ is advertised for sale to satisfy a tax assessment [Hannibal Courier-Post, Mar. 6, 1935 p13c].

February – Orion moved the Journal “to the room over Stover & Horr’s Clothing Store, on Main Street” [Wecter 243].

April 9 Friday – The Saluda, a side-wheel, wooden hull packet, 223 tons, christened in 1846, sank in 1850 but eventually was raised and restored. On Apr. 9, 1852, Good Friday, with Mormon emigrants aboard, the boat was headed for Council Bluffs, Iowa. Upon arriving at Lexington, the current was swift. Pilot Charles S. LaBarge pushed her too hard and her boilers blew. Pilot and Master Belt and about 75 others died. It was the worst disaster to that time on the Missouri River. At that time, Sam was still in Hannibal, working on Orion’s newspaper, the Journal and must have heard and even reported the news. Still when Samuel E. Belt wrote Sam on Feb. 12, 1905 asking for his recollection of the disaster, Isabel Lyon answered for Clemens:

“Mr. Clemens wishes me to say that if he ever knew anything about the Saluda disaster it long ago went out of his memory” [MTP].

March 25 Thursday – Sam wrote the descriptive piece, “Hannibal Missouri,” which he submitted to the Philadelphia American Courier, published on May 8, 1852 [ET&S 1: 68]. In this glowing description of his hometown, Sam included the Mississippi River, the St. Joseph Railroad, and the cave south of town. Dempsey points out he “completely omitted any reference to slaves or slavery” [168].

May – The Journal moved above T.R. Selme’s on Main Street opposite the Post Office [Dempsey 158].

May 1 Saturday – The Carpet Bag, a Boston journal that provided rustic humor, and was often sent to Western towns, carried a 425-word sketch of Sam’s titled “The Dandy Frightening the Squatter.” It was signed with Sam’s initials, “S.L.C.” The sketch related a steamboat passenger showing off to female passengers by acting brave, only to be one-upped by a Hannibal man [A. Hoffman 29]. No payment was made, but the glory was all Sam’s. This may be one of the two pieces that Sam mistakenly recalled having contributed to the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post [ET&S 1: 63].

Note: Sam would have been familiar with The Carpet Bag, edited by Benjamin Shillaber (1814-1890), because wholesale agents in the West distributed it widely. Plus, Orion quoted articles from the humor publication more than a dozen times between Mar. 4 and June 3, 1852 [“Benjamin Shillaber and his ‘Carpet Bag’, by Cyril Clemens, The New England Quarterly Vol. 14, No. 3, Sept. 1941 p.527; See also My Own Story by J.T. Trowbridge (1903) p. 181-2].

In an interesting side note, eighteen-year-old Charles Farrar Browne (1834-1867), known after 1858 as Artemus Ward, had been working as a compositor for The Carpet Bag over the past year, and probably set the type for the May 1 issue [538]. Shillaber’s most important literary work was The Life and Sayings of Mrs. Partington (1854), a popular work in Sam’s library years later [Gribben 641].

May 8 Saturday – The Philadelphia American Courier ran “Hannibal, Missouri,” a description of Hannibal by Sam (dated Mar. 25, 1852). This was heady stuff for a mere sixteen-year-old. Sam used these successes to brag to various females in the town and to throw them up to Orion. Easterners were curious about the Western frontier; many Eastern papers sought articles about the West [A. Hoffman 30]. Again, no payment was made for these articles.

Summer – Sam, now sixteen, swam the Mississippi River to the Illinois side, then turned back and swam back to Hannibal without landing. It was two miles round trip, and on the return leg Sam got a cramp and had to navigate home with only his arms [MTB 57].

July 1 Thursday – Sam became an uncle with the birth of Annie E. Moffett to Sam’s sister Pamela Ann and her husband, William Anderson Moffett. Annie would always be a favorite of Sam’s; she married Charles Luther Webster (1851-1891) in 1875, the man Sam would hire to run his publishing business [MTL 1: 382].

Orion had been forced to move the Journal into the living room of his mother’s house on Hill Street. Jim Wolfe moved in with the family and shared Sam’s bedroom. One night a cow wandered into the parlor, knocked over a type-case, and “ate a couple of composition rollers” [Wecter 244].

July 15 Thursday – Sam wrote a facetious piece of “the Dog Law” which from that day forth ordered all canines to be licensed at a dollar a head and wear collars. An early case of Sam pulling legs—readers’ legs, not dogs’ [Wecter 249].

The Hannibal Journal (formerly the Hannibal Western Union) printed an unsigned article, “Paragraph on a Military Company Formed by Town Boys,” attributed to Sam [Camfield, bibliog.].

July 24 Saturday – Sam reported that a calf had been bitten by a mad dog. A not-so-serious proposal, signed “A Dog-be-deviled Citizen,” called for all dogs to be exterminated. The dog pieces brought Ament’s Hannibal Courier to the defense of dogs, and the Hannibal Tri-Weekly Messenger also joined in. It’s likely that Orion humored Sam these small needles in print, or perhaps did not notice the humor in them. Such was Orion’s nature, humorless, oblivious [Wecter 249].

August, late – Ament’s Hannibal Courier and the Hannibal Tri-Weekly Messenger printed pieces defending the town dogs [Wecter 249].

September 9 Thursday – Orion left town for a week and turned the paper over to Sam, who printed gossip to liven things up. He printed an account titled “A Family Muss” about fighting among an Irish family on Holliday’s Hill. Sam used the pen name “W. Epaminondas Adrastus Perkins,” and showed the sort of fictionalizing of news he would later develop in Nevada and California [Wecter 249; ET&S 1: 69].

September 16 Thursday – Sam satirized Josiah T. Hinton, the new editor of the competing Hannibal Tri-Weekly Messenger, in an article, “Local Resolves to Commit Suicide.” See insert. It seems Hinton had been a jilted lover, so went to the river one night to drown himself, but could not follow through. Sam heard of this and wrote his article along with engravings he fashioned from wood blocks, picturing the editor testing the water’s depth. After the editor retaliated, Sam published two more ridiculing sketches. In a rage, the editor stormed the Journal’s office, only to find seventeen-year-old Sam sitting calmly in the editor’s chair [A. Hoffman 30]. Also during Orion’s absence, Sam’s first use of a pen name appeared: W. Epaminondas Adrastus Perkins (See Sept. 9 entry.) Perkins was soon changed to “Blab” [Powers, Dangerous 199].

Posing as an observer of local society and morals, Sam satirized a drunk and family on Holliday’s Hill. Such subjects were not usually mentioned in newspapers. Sam through Blab, reported with sarcasm on the wife beating by the drunk as “an extreme case of matrimony.” Sam also wrote other pieces with the W.E.A.B. or Blab nom de plume, “Historical Exhibition—A No.1 Ruse,” and “Blabbing Government Secrets!” [ET&S 1: 78]. “Editorial Agility” appeared unsigned and is attributed to Sam [Camfield, bibliog.].

September 23 Thursday – “Blab’s Tour”; “Letter to ‘Mr. Editor’” byline Blab; “Letter to ‘Mr. Editor’” byline A Dog-be-Deviled Citizen,” [Camfield, bibliog.] and “‘Pictur’ Department,” were printed with additional thrusts at the Messenger’s “Local.” Orion returned; Blab announced, “I have retired from public life to the shades of Glascock’s Island” [Wecter 253; ET&S 1: 72-4]. Blab announced his final appearance in the Journal [ET&S 1: 83].

November 4 Thursday – “Conubial Bliss,” another unsigned sketch of Sam’s about a rowdy Irishman on “Holliday’s Hill” appeared in the Hannibal Journal [ET&S 1: 85]:

November 25 Thursday – Orion’s newspaper, the Hannibal Journal, commented on Joseph Ament’s sale of the Hannibal Missouri Courier:

[Ament’s ability had] made him an efficient supporter of his party principles, while his courtesy and uniformly manly course, procured him many friends among his opponents. We heartily wish him success wherever he may bend his steps, and in whatever business he may undertake—except making proselytes to his party [Benson 6]. Note: the two papers had been political rivals.

November 30 Tuesday – Sam’s seventeenth birthday.

Philadelphia’s Better Than New York

January 23 Sunday – Sam gave a drunk some matches for his pipe. Later that night the drunk was arrested and jailed in a brick house by the river. At 2 AM the jail caught fire from the drunk’s pipe and people could only watch as the man burned to death. It was an episode that loaded more guilt on Sam, and in 1870 he recalled the death in a letter to his boyhood pal, Will Bowen: “we accidentally burned up that poor fellow in the calaboose” [MTL 4: 51]. Just how the fire started, no one could tell, yet Sam carried guilt from that episode his entire life. (Date calculated from Orion’s Jan. 27 account in the Journal) [Wecter 254].

March, early – An accident at the Journal ruined several columns of type, as reported by the Messenger on Mar. 5. Orion announced the paper would now be a daily as well, to make up for lost editions, under the name the Hannibal Daily Journal [Benson 7].

April 16 Saturday– The Journal printed an unsigned comic verse, “On Miss Anna Bread,” attributed to Sam [Camfield, bibliog.].

April 29 Friday – Two humorous pieces appeared in the Journal over the name “Rambler,” one a report of a stagecoach that crashed through a cellar, and the other a report that “some French gentleman or gentlemen” stole “two hams only” from Brittingham’s pork house [Wecter 257].

May 5 Thursday – Orion once again left the Journal in Sam’s hands. Sam printed three stanzas of vernacular humor in verse “The Heart’s Lament,” dated May 4, under the pen name, “Rambler,” one he would use again in 1858 for the St. Louis Missouri Democrat. The rival Messenger paper was outselling the Journal, now a daily, and Sam was overburdened with getting the paper out. Brother Henry Clemens was a slow and careless typesetter, who probably didn’t like the work; Sam had to keep long hours to correct Henry’s errors [Wecter 257; ET&S 1: 88-90].

May 6 Friday – An unsigned article printed in the Daily Journal: “The Editor left yesterday for St. Louis,” is attributed to Sam [Camfield, bibliog.]. “This must be our excuse if the paper is lacking in interest.” Sam made up a controversy about a love poem to “Katie of H——L,” confusing on purpose Hannibal and Hell and again signed “Rambler.” He then proceeded to write objections back and forth. Another unsigned article and headline hoax, “Terrible Accident!” was printed in the Journal and is attributed to Sam. Lastly, an unsigned item, “Two paragraphs ridiculing Abner Gilstrap,” is also attributed to Sam. On his return, Orion finally gave Sam his own column, which ran only three issues. [Wecter 257-8; Camfield bibliog.].

May 7 Saturday – Two items ran in the Hannibal Journal, one signed “Grumbler” and one unsigned and attributed to Sam—“Letter to ‘Mr. Editor’,” and “Married in Podunk” [Camfield, bibliog.]. Sam introduced “Grumbler” to continue a dialogue protesting, “Rambler’s” verses to “Katie in Hell.”

May 9 Monday – Two items ran in the Journal, one signed “Rambler” and one unsigned and attributed to Sam—“For the Daily Journal,” and “Nonsense Riddle. Making a Bid for Subscription Remittances” [Camfield, bibliog.].

May 10 Tuesday – A signed “Grumbler” Journal item titled, “To Rambler,” continued the back and forth faux controversy. “Sunday Amusements,” an article written for the Journal, and signed only “J” is attributed to Sam [ET&S 1: 376]. This verbal sparing anticipated the exercises with “The Unreliable,” a rival Virginia City journalist.

May 12 Thursday – Four items appeared in the Journal using Sam’s various pen names or unsigned and attributed to him: “Drunken Spree on the Ferry Boat,” (unsigned); “For the Daily Journal,”(signed by “Peter Pencilcase’s Son, John Snooks”); “Increase in the Population of England for 1853,” (unsigned); and a poem, “Separation,” (“Rambler”) [Camfield, bibliog.].

May 13 Friday –Wecter says that Sam gave “his most polished effort just as Orion returned” [260]. This Journal article was titled, “Oh, She has a Red Head,” signed by “Son of Adam,” a defense of all who had red hair, claiming that Jefferson and Adam and even Jesus Christ had red hair [ET&S 1: 102]. This time, however, Orion allowed Sam’s humor to continue in the paper [Wecter 260].

Also appearing in the Journal this day was an unsigned piece, “About Rambler and his Enemies,” attributed to Sam; an unsigned/attributed editorial note praising the Red Head piece; another “For the Daily Journal,” signed by “Rambler,” and “Two Short Editorials on Abner Gilstrap,” unsigned and attributed [Camfield, bibliog.].

May 14 Saturday – Sam wrote “News Item About Steamboat Arrivals,” in the Journal as “Rambler,” praising the “charming” steamboat Kate Kearney, which “came walking the water like a thing of life” [Branch, “Steersman” 206n10]. Orion, upon his return he printed an editorial “commanding the peace [as]. in the manner of Judge Clemens” [Wecter 259]. “It is a great bore to us,” wrote Orion in the Journal, “and doubtless to the public generally.” Sam’s fun was somewhat dampened [Wecter 259].

May 18 Wednesday – Westward emigrant parties were making their way through Hannibal—Mormons headed to Salt Lake and gold seekers to California. The Hannibal Daily Journal of this date ran a typical notice:

Several California teams passed through here this morning. Messrs. T.W. Bunberry, A.J. Price, and Sam’l Fry started this morning with a good, light wagon and four yoke of fine oxen [Benson 22].

Even a few of Sam’s companions went with their families. Sam would recall:

“I remember the departure of the cavalcade when it spurred Westward. We were all there to see and to envy. And I can still see that proud little chap sailing by on a great horse….We were all on hand to gaze and envy when he returned, two years later, in unimaginable glory—for he had traveled” [MTA 2: 183]

May 20 Friday – An unsigned/attributed “Editorial Comment on Abner Gilstrap” appeared in the Journal [Camfield, bibliog.].

May 25 Wednesday – Sam wrote another “Assistant’s Column” in the Journal [MTL 1:2].

A notice first ran in the Journal: “WANTED! AN APPRENTICE OF THE PRINTING BUSINESS. APPLY SOON.” The ad ran for two weeks.

Wecter concludes this date marked Sam’s departure from Hannibal [Wecter 263]. Sam had promised his mother that he would abstain from cards and liquor [Wecter 262].

May 26 Thursday – Sam wrote his last “Assistant’s Column” inserting a paragraph about the Crystal Palace in New York City. He wrote that the fifteen to twenty thousand persons who were “continually congregated” there engaged in “drunkenness and debauching…carried on to their fullest extent.” Sam was thinking about leaving Hannibal by this time, and New York may have already been his desired destination, but he spoke only of St. Louis to his mother [Wecter 262; MTL 1:2].

May 27Friday June, early – By this time Sam was in St. Louis to find his way in the world. Paine writes he took a night boat to St. Louis [MTB 94]. Sam likely stayed with his sister Pamela and found work as a typesetter. He vowed never to let a place trap him again. Orion was so depressed that he did not publish another edition of the Journal for a month [Powers, Dangerous 217].

June 2 Thursday – Four unsigned news articles appeared in the Journal attributed to Sam days after he left town: “Friday Evening, May 27, 1853,” “Saturday Evening, May 28, 1853,” “Monday Evening, May 30, 1853. Small Pox Gone,” and “Tuesday Evening, May 31, 1853” [Camfield, bibliog.]. It is likely that Sam had left these, either complete or for Orion to finish and use as he saw fit. Sam’s only other items in the Journal were two letters home that ran in September.

June 11 Saturday – Orion failed to get out the Hannibal Daily Journal for a whole month, beginning on this date. In one sense, Sam never truly left Hannibal—he carried it in his heart and memory and poured it out into The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Hannibal in those pages would become a universal boyhood home, an icon like the man himself. Sam would visit again in 1882 to gather material for Life on the Mississippi, and the last time in 1902. In many ways Sam Clemens would always be the boy of Hannibal—his wife Livy would call him “youth.”

“White town drowsing in the sunshine of a summers morning…the great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun…” [LM ch.4].

Summer – St. Louis in the summer of 1853 was a burgeoning city of 100,000 souls, the largest city of the West. The city offered Western freedom together with many of the luxuries and affectations of the East. For a young man from Hannibal, such a city must have been dazzling. Sam had kept plans secret from his family, to work in St. Louis long enough to make fare to New York City. Sam had read stories about the World’s Fair there, The Crystal Palace Fair, and he’d included them in his Journal column. He probably stayed with the Moffetts and set type for the St. Louis Evening News.

In 1903 Sam remembered “the time in St. Louis in ’53, aged 17 ½, that I took the shy pretty girl from up country to Ben DeBar’s theatre” to see The Toodles, A Domestic Drama in Two Acts (1832 by Richard John Raymond) and then couldn’t get his too-tight shoes on after the performance [Gribben 570]. This was a play he would see again Jan. 12, 1864 in Carson City and report on. The girl he took is unidentified.

August 19 Friday – At 8 AM Sam boarded a boat and started a journey by train and boat to New York. He did not tell his mother about the trip, which took about five days. From St. Louis to Alton, Ill by the sidewheeler steamer Cornelia, 11:00 AM, from Alton to Springfield on the partly completed Chicago and Mississippi Railroad; by Frink’s stage to Bloomington, Ind. [MTL 1: 5n2]. Dempsey notes that the train station was “just a few blocks” from the law office of Abraham Lincoln [232].

August 20 Saturday – Sam took the Illinois Central line to LaSalle, then the Chicago and Rock Island into Chicago, arriving at 7 PM [MTL 1: 5n2; Dempsey 232]. He “laid over all day Sunday” [MTL 1: 3].

August 21 Sunday – Sam took the 9 PM Michigan Central to Toledo, Ohio, then to Monroe, Michigan on the Northern Indiana and Michigan Southern railroads [Dempsey 232]. In his letter he wrote he traveled from Chicago to Monroe, Michigan “by railroad, another day” [MTL 1: 3].

August 22 Monday – 8 AM “from Monroe, across Lake Erie, in the fine Lake palace, ‘Southern Michigan,’ to Buffalo, another day. Sam would revisit Buffalo and Niagara Falls in 1869 [MTL 1: 3; Reigstad 59]. Dempsey: “He traveled to Buffalo, New York, aboard the steamer Southern Michigan” [Dempsey 232].

August 23 Tuesday – 7 AM “from Buffalo to Albany, on the “Lightning Express” railroad, another day” [MTL 1: 3; Powers, MT A Life 64]. Dempsey gives this train trip as beginning at 8 A.M. [232].

August 24 Wednesday – “…and from Albany to New York, by Hudson river steamboat [Isaac Newton], another day—an awful trip, taking five days, where it should have been only three” [MTL 1: 3]. Sam arrived in New York City at 5 AM with “two or three dollars in his pocket and a ten-dollar bill concealed in the lining of his coat” [MTB 95; MTL 1: 5n2; Powers, MT A Life 64]. (See letter of this date for a more exacting suggested itinerary.)

Sam wrote his mother Jane Clemens  with a somewhat backhanded apology for shocking her at his destination. He then described an exhibit of what would later become “the wild men of Borneo,” and a brief mention of the Crystal Palace and the Marble Palace. Sam found lodging in a mechanics’ boarding house on Duane Street [MTL 1: 3-5; MTB 96].

My Dear Mother: you will doubtless be a little surprised, and somewhat angry when you receive this, and find me so far from home; but you must bear a little with me, for you know I was always the best boy you had, and perhaps you remember the people used to say to their children—“Now don’t do like Orion and Henry Clemens but take Sam for your guide!”

Well, I was out of work in St. Louis, and didn’t fancy loafing in such a dry place, where there is no pleasure to be seen without paying well for it, and so I thought I might as well go to New York. I packed up my “duds” and left for this village, where I arrived, all right, this morning.

It took a day, by steamboat and cars, to go from St. Louis to Bloomington, Ill; another day by railroad, from there to Chicago, where I laid over all day Sunday; from Chicago to Monroe, in Michigan, by railroad, another day; from Monroe, across Lake Erie, in the fine Lake palace, “Southern Michigan,” to Buffalo, another day; from Buffalo to Albany, by railroad, another day; and from Albany to New York, by Hudson river steamboat, another day—an awful trip, taking five days, where it should have been only three. I shall wait a day or so for my insides to get settled, after the jolting they received, when I shall look out for a sit; for they say there is plenty of work to be had for sober compositors.

The trip, however, was a very pleasant one. Rochester, famous on account of the “Spirit Rappings” was of course interesting; and when I saw the Court House in Syracuse, it called to mind the time when it was surrounded with chains and companies of soldiers, to prevent the rescue of McReynolds’ nigger, by the infernal abolitionists. I reckon I had better black my face, for in these Eastern States niggers are considerably better than white people.

[ closing and signature missing] [MTPO].

August 29 Monday – Sam got “a permanent situation…in a book and job office and went to work.” He was paid 23 cents per 1000 ems, the lowest rate. He worked in the fifth floor office of John A. Gray, 95-97 Cliff Street [MTL 1: 9; Powers, MT A Life 65]. His earnings were four dollars a week; he managed to save as much as fifty cents a week [MTB 96].

August 31 Wednesday – In New York, Sam wrote to his mother, Jane Clemens, of his new position, his rooming house, a derogatory description of “brats” in the city, and food.

My dear Mother:

New York is at present overstocked with printers; and I suppose they are from the South, driven North by the yellow fever. I got a permanent situation on Monday morning, in a book and job office, and went to work. The printers here are badly organized, and therefore have to work for various prices. These prices are 23, 25, 28, 30, 32, and 35 cents per 1,000 ems. The price I get is 23 cents; but I did very well to get a place at all, for there are thirty or forty—yes, fifty good printers in the city with no work at all; besides, my situation is permanent, and I shall keep it till I can get a better one. The office I work in is John A. Gray’s, 97 Cliff street, and, next to Harper’s, is the most extensive in the city. In the room in which I work I have forty compositors for company. Taking compositors, pressmen, stereotypers, and all, there are about two hundred persons employed in the concern. The “Knickerbocker,” “New York Recorder,” “Choral Advocate,” “Jewish Chronicle,” “Littell’s Living Age,” “Irish ——,” and half a dozen other papers and periodicals are printed here, besides an immense number of books. They are very particular about spacing, justification, proofs, etc., and even if I do not make much money, I will learn a great deal. I thought [Thomas] Ustick was particular enough, but acknowledge now that he was not old-maidish. Why, you must put exactly the same space between every two words, and every line must be spaced alike. They think it dreadful to space one line with three em spaces, and the next one with five ems. However, I expected this, and worked accordingly from the beginning; and out of all the proofs I saw, without boasting, I can say mine was by far the cleanest. In St. Louis, Mr. Baird said my proofs were the cleanest that were ever set in his office. The foreman of the Anzeiger told me the same—foreman of the Watchman the same; and with all this evidence, I believe I do set a clean proof.

Of all the commodities, manufactures—or whatever you please to call it—in New York, trundle-bed trash—children I mean—take the lead. Why, from Cliff street, up Frankfort to Nassau street, six or seven squares—my road to dinner—I think I could count two hundred brats. Niggers, mulattoes, quadroons, Chinese, and some the Lord no doubt originally intended to be white, but the dirt on whose faces leaves one uncertain as to that fact, block up the little, narrow street; and to wade through this mass of human vermin, would raise the ire of the most patient person that ever lived. In going to and from my meals, I go by the way of Broadway—and to cross Broadway is the rub—but once across, it is the rub for two or three squares. My plan—and how could I choose another, when there is no other—is to get into the crowd; and when I get in, I am borne, and rubbed, and crowded along, and need scarcely trouble myself about using my own legs; and when I get out, it seems like I had been pulled to pieces and very badly put together again.

Last night I was in what is known as one of the finest fruit saloons in the world. The whole length of the huge, glittering hall is filled with beautiful ornamented marble slab tables, covered with the finest fruit I ever saw in my life. I suppose the fruit could not be mentioned with which they could not supply you. It is a perfect palace. The gas lamps hang in clusters of half a dozen together—representing grapes, I suppose—all over the hall.

[closing and signature missing]

P.S. The printers have two libraries in town, entirely free to the craft; and in these I can spend my evenings most pleasantly. If books are not good company, where will I find it? [MTL 1: 9-12]. Note: for more on the publications Sam listed in the first paragraph, see p.11n4 in source; for more on the Printers’ Free Library and Reading Room see n.10. Thomas Watt Ustick (b. 1800/01) prominent St. Louis printer.

September 3? Saturday – In New York, Sam wrote at 2 AM to his sister, Pamela Moffett in St. Louis. After describing Crystal Palace of the World’s Fair, he wrote that the daily visitors average 6,000, double Hannibal’s population, and that the city’s water was supplied by the Croton Aqueduct from a reservoir in Westchester County, some thirty eight miles away. Such figures impressed Sam. After descriptions he wrote of family:

I am very sorry to learn that Henry has been sick. [in margin: Write, and let me know how Henry is] He ought to go to the country and take exercise; for he is not half so healthy as Ma thinks he is. If he had my walking to do, he would be another boy entirely. Four times every day I walk a little over one mile; and working hard all day, and walking four miles, is exercise—I am used to it now, though, and it is no trouble. Where is it Orion’s going to? Tell Ma my promises are faithfully kept; and if I have my health I will take her to Ky. in the spring—I shall save money for this. Tell Jim and all the rest of them to write, and give me all the news. I am sorry to hear such bad news from Will and Captain Bowen. I shall write to Will soon. The Chatham-square Post Office and the Broadway office too, are out of my way, and I always go to the General Post Office; so you must write the direction of my letters plain, “New York City, N. Y.,” without giving the street or anything of the kind, or they may go to some of the other offices. (It has just struck 2 A.M. and I always get up at 6, and am at work at 7.) You ask where I spend my evenings. Where would you suppose, with a free printers’ library containing more than 4,000 volumes within a quarter of a mile of me, and nobody at home to talk to? I shall write to Ella soon. Write soon.

Truly your Brother

Sam

P.S I have written this by a light so dim that you nor Ma could not read by it [MTL 1: 13]. Note: Ella Evelina Hunter married James A.H. Lampton, Jane’s younger (by 21 years) half-brother, in Nov. 1849. Paine misidentified Ella as Ella Creel who lived in Keokuk; Twain didn’t visit Keokuk until 1855.

September 5 Monday – Orion printed Sam’s Aug. 24 letter to his mother as an unsigned article in the Hannibal Journal [Camfield, bibliog.].

September 10 Saturday – Orion printed Sam’s Aug. 31 letter to his mother as an unsigned article in the Hannibal Journal [Camfield, bibliog.].

September 22 Thursday – Orion sold the Hannibal Journal and moved the family to Muscatine, Iowa, where he soon started another paper, the Muscatine Journal with a partner, John Mahin [MTL 1: 18n3; Powers, Dangerous 229-30].

September 30 Friday – The Muscatine Journal published its first edition. Orion sent a copy to Sam, who later submitted letters for Orion to use in the paper [Powers, Dangerous 230].

October 8 Saturday – In New York, Sam wrote to Pamela, saying he hadn’t written to any of the family for some time and gave the reason that he had “been fooling myself with the idea that I was going to leave New York, every day for the last two weeks. I have taken a liking to the abominable place…” He confessed he didn’t know where the family was, due to his receipt some days before of the final issue of the Journal. He supposed they were in St. Louis. Sam told of seeing Edwin Forrest in the role of Spartacus in the play Gladiator at the Broadway Theater. He told her not to worry about him, that he would be as “independent as a woodsawyer’s clerk” [MTL 1: 16-18].

October 19–21 Friday – Sam left New York for Philadelphia. The trip lasted four and a half hours, by steamboat from New York to South Amboy, New Jersey and from there by train to Camden, ferry across the Delaware River. In several letters, Sam decided he liked Philadelphia much more than New York [MTL 1: 28n20]. Paine briefly mentions a boarding-house roommate, an Englishman named Sumner who now and then grilled herring, which was “regarded as a feast” [MTB 98].

October 26–? 28 Friday – In Philadelphia, Sam wrote to Orion and Henry. He received the last edition of the Journal, which carried a notice that the paper had been sold,

“…and I very naturally supposed from that, that the family had disbanded, and taken up winter quarters in St. Louis. Therefore, I have been writing to Pamela, till I’m tired of it, and have received no answer.”

Most of the letter was description of Philadelphia, local customs and Sam’s reactions to the city. He continued the “Katie in H——l” joke by ending Orion’s section with “Tell me all that is going on in H——l” [MTL 1: 19].

November 11 Friday – Sam’s letter from Philadelphia of Oct. 26 to Orion and Henry was printed in the Muscatine Journal [MTL 1: 19].

November 23 Wednesday – Sam went to the third anniversary ball and banquet of Philadelphia Typographical Union No. 2. Publishing people met to discuss how to raise money for a monument to Benjamin Franklin [MTL 1: 28].

November 28 Monday – In Philadelphia, Sam wrote brother Orion after receiving his letter, not extant.

My Dear Brother:

I received your letter to-day. I think Ma ought to spend the winter in St Louis. I don’t believe in that climate—it’s too cold for her. [in Muscatine]

The printers’ annual ball and supper came off the other night. The proceeds amounted to about $1.000. The printers, as well as other people are endeavoring to raise money to erect a monument to Franklin, but there are so many abominable foreigners here (and among printers, too,) who hate everything American, that I am very certain as much money for such a purpose could be raised in St Louis, as in Philadelphia[.] I was in Franklin’s old office this morning,—the “North American” (formerly “Philadelphia Gazette”), and there were at least one foreighner for every American at work there.

How many subscribers has the Journal got? What does the job-work pay? and what does the whole concern pay? I have not seen a copy of the paper yet.

I will try to write for the paper occasionally, but I fear my letters will be very uninteresting, for this incessant night work dulls one[’s] ideas amazingly.

From some cause, I cannot set type near so fast as when I was at home. Sunday is a long day, and while others set 12 and 15,000, yesterday, I only set 10,000. However, I will shake this laziness off, soon, I reckon.

I always thought the eastern people were patterns of uprightness; but I never before saw so many whisky-swilling, God-despising heathens as I find in this part of the country. I believe I am the only person in the Inquirer office that does not drink. One young fellow makes $18 for a few weeks, and gets on a grand “bender” and spends every cent of it.

How do you like “free-soil?[”] I would like amazingly to see a good, old-fashioned negro. My love to all

Truly your brother

Sam [MTL 1: 28-9].

November 30 Wednesday – Sam’s eighteenth birthday.

December 4 Sunday – In Philadelphia, Sam wrote a letter to Orion’s newspaper, the Muscatine Journal, describing the layout of the city, the “unaccountable feeling of awe” one feels when entering the Old State House in Chestnut Street where the Declaration of Independence was passed by Congress on July 4, 1776. He also told of a local practice of “free-and-easy” at saloons, which was a sort of karaoke laugh-fest. Sam noted the attraction of “two fat women, one weighing 764, and the other 769 pounds, to ‘astonish the natives’ ” [MTL 1: 30-1].

December 5 Monday – In Philadelphia, Sam wrote a short note to sister Pamela: 

My Dear Sister:

I have already written two letters within the last two hours, and you will excuse me if this is not lengthy. If I had the money, I would come to St. Louis now, while the river is open; [i.e., not frozen] but in the last two or three weeks I have spent about thirty dollars for clothing, so I suppose I shall remain where I am. I only want to return to avoid night work, which is injuring my eyes. I have received one or two letters from home, but they are not written as they should be; and know no more about what is going on there, than the man in the moon. One only has to leave home to learn how to write an interesting [letter] to an absent friend when he gets back. I suppose you board at Mrs. Hunter’s yet—and that, I think, is somewhere in Olive street above Fifth. Phila is one of the healthiest places in the Union. I wanted to spend this winter in a warm climate; but it is too late now. I don’t like our present prospect for cold weather at all.

Truly your brother

Sam [MTL 1: 33]. Paine says Sam was “clearly homesick” [MTB 101].

December 16 Friday – Sam’s letter of Dec. 4 was printed in the Muscatine Journal [MTL 1: 30].

December 24 Saturday – In Philadelphia, Sam wrote to the Muscatine Journal, describing the weather, a recent fire, the price of turkeys at $7 [MTL 1: 34-5].

Return to St. Louis and Muscatine – Orion Ties the Knot

January 6 Friday – Sam’s letter of Dec. 24 from Philadelphia ran in the Muscatine Journal [MTL 1: 34].

February 3 Friday – Sam wrote another letter to the Muscatine Journal, which was printed unsigned as “From Philadelphia Correspondence of the Journal.” He described going to a reception for Captains Low and Crighton, visiting heroes to Philadelphia from the rescue of survivors in the steamship San Francisco on December 25, 1853. The reception was probably on Feb. 2 [MTL 1: 39n3]. Sam also wrote of the Philadelphia Ledger’s habit of inserting doggerel poetry in obituaries; Paine claimed that Sam submitted a few of these to the Ledger, but “never confessed that” [MTB 98].

February 15 Wednesday – Clemens took a night train in Philadelphia, which would arrive in Washington the next morning [Bliss 1].

February 16Thursday – Sam arrived at the Baltimore and Ohio station in Washington, D.C. for a short vacation that he called “a flying trip.” It is possible he stayed until Washington’s Birthday. Paine says he did not work there [MTL 1: 44; 11; 3; Bliss 1].

February 17 to 19 Sunday – In Washington, D.C., Sam wrote to the Muscatine Journal. He took a “stroll” around the capitol waiting for Congress to sit (Feb. 17) [MTL 1: 43n1]. even though the snow was “falling so thickly I could scarcely see across the street.” He described various buildings, including the unfinished Washington Monument. On Feb.19 he added description of the Smithsonian. Sam was particularly taken by the Museum of the Patent Office, where Bliss writes he spent four hours [9]. He ended with a note about seeing Edwin Forrest playing Othello at the National Theater on Feb. 17.

Sam, now eighteen, would next visit Washington in 1867, a 32-year-old man. By then the city would be greatly changed, but Washington’s Monument wouldn’t be completed until 1885, at 555 feet, the tallest structure in the world. In the Senate Chamber, Sam observed that the senators:

…dress very plainly, as they should, and all avoid display, and do not speak unless they have something to say—and that cannot be said of the Representatives. Mr. Cass is a fine looking old man; Mr. Douglass, or ‘Young America’ looks like a lawyer’s clerk, and Mr. Seward is a slim, dark, bony individual, and looks like a respectable wind would blow him out of the country [MTL 1: 41].

Notes: Lewis Cass (1782-1866) Secretary of State under Buchanan; Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861), Lincoln’s competitor for the presidency; William H. Seward (1801-1872) Secretary of State under Lincoln. Douglas was promoting the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would pass three months later. For a more thorough treatment of Sam’s first stop in Washington, see Donald Tiffany Bliss’ 2012 work, Mark Twain’s Tale of Today.

February 23 Thursday – By this date, Sam had returned to Philadelphia. He worked for about two weeks on the Ledger and North American [MTL 1: 44]. Bliss writes he returned on this day [11].

March 24 Friday – Sam’s letter of Feb. 17 and 18 was printed in the Muscatine Journal [MTL 1: 40].

April –Sam may have returned home as early as April, as there is no mention of him working in New York during this period in later letters or notes.

Summer, late – Sam, “obliged by financial stress to go home,” does so. In 1906 Sam recalled:

“I went back to the Mississippi Valley, sitting upright in the smoking-car two or three days and nights. When I reached St. Louis I was exhausted. I went to bed on board a steamboat that was bound for Muscatine. I fell asleep at once, with my clothes on, and didn’t wake again for thirty-six hours –” [Neider 95; MTL 1: 45-6].

August 7 Monday – In St. Louis, Sam boarded with the Paveys, formerly of Hannibal. Sam’s roommate was Jacob H. Burrough (1827-1883) “a journeyman chairmaker with a taste for Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, and Disraeli” [MTB 103]. (See also MTNJ 1: 37n45, & Nov. 1, 1876 letter to Jacob H. Burrough.)

In a Dec. 15, 1900 letter to Jacob’s son, Frank E. Burrough (1865-1903), Sam recalled the boarding house:

“It was a large, cheap place, & had in it a good many young fellows who were students at a Commercial College. I was a journeyman printer, freshly fledged, your father was a journeyman chairmaker….He & I were comrades & close friends” [MTNJ 1: 37n45].

Election rioting broke out between the Know-Nothings (anti-immigration) and German and Irish immigrants in St. Louis. Sam went with a friend to an armory and drilled with a militia that had been formed to put down the riots. When word came that the mob was in force in the lower end of the city, Sam asked his friend to hold his musket while he got a drink. Sam didn’t return. The riot was quelled in two days. Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) had attended one Know-Nothings meeting in the city [MTL 1: 46; Powers, MT A Life 69].

September 1 Friday ca. – In the first entry for Sept., 1854, Francis Jackson of Boston Massachusetts’ Anti-Slavery Society, made this entry:

“Samuel Clemens passage from Missouri Penetentiary [sic] to Boston—he having been imprisoned there two years for aiding fugitives to escape…$24.50” [Sattelmeyer 294].

Note: In “Did Sam Clemens Take the Abolitionists for a Ride?” Sattelmeyer speculates that Sam played a trick on Jackson and the abolitionists, writing for financial support for non-existent aid to fugitive slaves, and impersonating an abolitionist. Sattelmeyer’s article further speculates that Sam’s rail fare back home may have been a debt Sam needed to repay.

Fall, Winter—There is some controversy whether Sam worked on the Muscatine Journal and stayed a few months there, or whether he went to St. Louis after a short visit with family. Paine takes this latter position [MTB 102]. Powers claims Sam got rehired as a typesetter on the St. Louis Evening News [Powers, MT A Life 68].

November 30 Thursday – Sam’s nineteenth birthday.

December 19 Tuesday –Orion Clemens married Mary Eleanor (Mollie) Stotts, in Keokuk, Iowa. Orion was visiting there. They left the next morning for Muscatine, but when she became homesick, Orion moved them back to Keokuk.

Orion & Mollie Moved to Keokuk; Sam Followed – Visit back home

 Oh! to be a Cub Pilot – Worked for Orion in Keokuk – Warsaw, Illinois – Back in Keokuk

February 13 Tuesday – Sam was once more in St. Louis, back at his former job at the Evening News. Sam lived during this period with the Pavey family [See also MTNJ 1: 37n45].

He attended a play, The Merchant of Venice, put on by the Thespian Society. Sam wrote on Feb. 16: “I had always thought that this was a comedy, until they made a farce of it” [MTL 1: 48n8].

February 15 Thursday –Sam was awakened by a fire a block and a half away from his rooming house, one that destroyed some valuable horses [MTL 1: 47].

February 16 Friday –Sam dated his letter this day to the editors of the Muscatine Tri-Weekly Journal (his brother Orion and Charles E. H. Wilson) [MTL 1:46-9]. He related the fire and a list of other happenings in St. Louis, including a play of Merchant of Venice. Later that night, Sam awoke to a man beating a woman with a stave in the street, raving she had broken his heart.

“I felt sorry for the poor heart-broken creature, and wished with all my heart it might please Providence to remove him from his troubles by putting it into the Sheriff’s head to hang the scoundrel before morning” [MTL 1: 48].

February 24–26 Monday – In St. Louis, Sam dated a letter to the Muscatine Journal and summarized St. Louis news, including the new route for St. Louis mail west—it would no longer go to New York first. He also related massacres by Indians in New Mexico. Though progressive beyond his time on racial matters, Sam didn’t care much for Indians. The letter ran on Mar. 9 [MTL 1: 50-51].

February 28 Wednesday – Sam’s letter of Feb. 16 ran in the Muscatine Journal [MTL 1: 46].

March 1 Thursday – Sam dated a letter from St. Louis to the Muscatine Tri-Weekly Journal [MTL 1: 54].

March 5 Monday – Sam dated another letter from St. Louis to the Tri-Weekly Journal [MTL 1: 54].

March 9 Friday – Sam’s letter dated Feb. 24 from St. Louis ran on page 2 of the Muscatine Tri-Weekly Journal [Branch, “Three New Letters” 4].

March 12 Monday – Sam’s letter of Mar. 1 ran in the Muscatine Tri-Weekly Journal as a featured article, “Special Correspondence.” Sam wrote about the killing of Benjamin Brand, Deputy Marshall, by Bob O’Blennis, a wealthy gambler and livery-stable owner.

Bob O’Blennis has long been celebrated as the most abandoned and reckless outlaw in St. Louis—and but for his money, would have been roasting in the infernal regions long before this. Mr. Brand is not the first man he ever killed. If all the curses I have heard heaped up on his head to-day were to go into effect, I almost doubt if a place could be invented hot enough for him [MTL 1: 54].

 Note: No letters are known to survive for the next fourteen and a half months [MTL 1: 58].

March 14 Wednesday – Sam’s letter of Mar. 5 ran in the Muscatine Tri-Weekly Journal.

The examination of witnesses in the O’Blennis murder case will be concluded to-night. The excitement which this tragedy created has subsided, but the people are till anxious to know how the trial will terminate—though, to tell the truth, few expect justice to be done. I doubt if there are a hundred people in St. Louis that do not think O’Blennis ought to be hung, and the number is still less that expect him to be punished at all. Since Jackson and Ward escaped hanging, people seem to have very little confidence in courts of justice [MTL 1: 55].

Mid 1855–late 1856 – Sam wrote a sketch titled, “Jul’us Caesar” that remained unpublished. Branch puts the date in this period [ET&S 1: 110].

June–July – Forty-nine of Sam’s notebooks survive, and the first notebook was from this period. It holds random entries on important and trivial matters, interspersed with information on phrenology, French lessons, and chess lessons. There were also entries relating to family business, a theological controversy, and laundry lists. Entries were first made in St. Louis, then in Keokuk, Iowa, and later during a trip to the villages of Hannibal, Florida, and Paris, Missouri [MTNJ 1: 11].

June, early – Orion sold his interest in the Muscatine Journal to James W. Logan [MTL 1: 58].

June 9 Saturday – Orion and Mollie moved to Keokuk, Iowa [MTL 1: 58]. Powers says this move took place “around the end of March 1855” [MT A Life 69].

June 11 Monday – Orion became the new owner of the Ben Franklin Book and Job Office printers [MTL 1: 58]. Selby writes that Orion “took possession” this day [6].

June, mid – Sam left St. Louis for Keokuk, Iowa, two hundred miles away [MTL 1: 58]. The town had a population of 6,500. Sam was nineteen and had already lived in quite a few places.

June 16 Saturday – Sam’s name appeared in a list of unclaimed letters in St. Louis, indicating he had left the city by this date [MTL 1: 58].

June 27 Wednesday – From Sam’s notebook:

“ …sent out to wash the following: 1 pair heavy Pants; 1 ‘ light do; 4 white Shirts; 4 ’ collars; 2 pair white cotton Socks; 1 summer cravat; 2 white Handkerchiefs; 1 pair twilled Drawers; 1 linen summer Coat/17 [x]. 6/102” [MTNJ 1: 35].

Note: Sam used semicolons in a laundry list! He was a printer. He also loved semicolons.

June 29 Friday – The Keokuk Dispatch described a man believed by the MTP editors to be Sam:

      We know a man in this city who would make a prime editor, and we believe that if he has any “genius” at all, it runs in that direction, “ ‘cos” he says there is not a single paper published in town worth reading—and he says that not one of them has any news—and if he published a paper, he says he would make news, and lots of it, and spirited news, too.

      We propose to have all the papers in the city to club together and secure the services of this chap, and have spirited news; it will pay—we bet on it. What do you all say about hiring this editorial genius? He will save us the expense of a telegraph. Everybody in the morning will be up at four to get the spirited news, and everybody will take the paper” [MTL 1: 58].

In 1906, Sam remembered Dick Higham, a coworker at his Orion’s office in Keokuk:

Dick, a good-natured, simple-minded, winning lad of seventeen, was an apprentice in my brother’s small printing office in Keokuk, Iowa. He had an old musket and he used to parade up and down with it in the office, and he said he would rather be a soldier than anything else. The rest of us laughed at him and said he was nothing but a disguised girl, and that if he were confronted by the enemy he would drop his gun and run.

      But we were not good prophets [MTA 2: 251]. Note: Higham died a hero in Ed Marsh’s company during the war, shot in the forehead at Ft. Donelson.

July 16 Monday – From Sam’s notebook:

“Florida, Mo., 16 July, 55:—Introduced to Miss Jule Violett, Miss Em Tandy, and Miss Em Young”

These three young ladies, 16, 17 and 19 years of age respectively, were residents of Florida, Mo.. Emily G. Young’s older sister, Sarah, married Benjamin Quarles, oldest son of Sam’s uncle John Quarles [MTNJ 1: 34n37]. From the same day in his notebook: “ ‘Reading Room’ on door of Hotel, Paris – reading variety consists of Jayne’s Med. Almanac and a pamphlet copy of “Lives of Beaumont & Fletcher” [MTNJ 1: 37]. Even in the small Hannibal town library, Sam had enjoyed four or five hundred volumes, and Sam had used a free printer’s library in New York with four thousand volumes, so it is likely Sam was dumbfounded by the paucity of reading material in Paris, Mo., and thus made this entry.

September 14 Friday – Sam became an uncle for the second time with the birth of Jennie Clemens to Orion and Mollie Clemens [MTL 1: 383].

November – Sam’s uncle John Quarles freed his slave, Uncle Daniel, age 50 [Rasmussen 106].

November 30 Friday – Sam’s twentieth birthday.

End of year – Sam probably left Orion’s employ late in the year to set type across the river in Warsaw, Illinois [MTL 1: 59]. Powers claims that “Sam blew up over phantom wages and quit.” Either it was temporary employment or Sam regretted the move, because he was back in Keokuk in the New Year [Powers, MT A Life 70]. After the birth of his daughter, Orion took on the compiling of Keokuk’s first city directory, leaving the rest of the business operations to Sam.

 Keokuk, St. Louis and Snodgrass Letters – Cincinnati Typesetter – Macfarlane

Early months – Sam began to itch to go to South America after reading an account of coca and the money that might be made harvesting the plant and distributing it in the U.S. [Powers, Dangerous 241]. In 1910, in “The Turning Point of My Life,” Sam remembered a two-volume work on the exploration of the Amazon, that it “told an astonishing tale about coca, a vegetable product of miraculous powers…” [MTL 1: 68n7].

January 17 Thursday – Sam spoke without prepared remarks to the Keokuk printers at a celebration of the 150th anniversary of Ben Franklin’s birth. It was perhaps Sam’s first after dinner speech, presaging his fame as a platform speaker. Sam Clemens as “Mark Twain” would be a great entertainer, perhaps the first American icon of the twentieth century.

By this time he was back in Orion’s employ, working alongside his seventeen-year-old brother, Henry Clemens, at 52 Main Street on the third floor. “Henry and Sam slept in the office, and Dick [Higham] came in for social evenings. These were likely to be lively evenings.” A young man named Edward Brownell from the ground floor bookstore also joined the evening entertainment [MTB 104-7]. Brownell once told Sam he was “too lazy to ever write a book” [107].

Professor Isbell, a music teacher on the second floor objected loudly to the noise, so that the next night the boys set up a game of ten pins using empty wine bottles, with rocks for balls (Henry declined to play.) Sam and Dick Higham ignored the teacher banging on the door. The next night they marched and drilled, no doubt causing much racket. When the teacher tried being pleasant with his objections, saying it disturbed his students, Sam said, “Why didn’t you mention it before? To be sure we don’t want to disturb the young ladies.” They gave up the ruckus, with Sam even joining in one of the singing classes [MTB 105].

January 19 Saturday – The Keokuk Gate City, page 7, reported on Sam’s speech under the headline: “The Printer’s Festival. Birthday of Benjamin Franklin” [Selby 7].

April 20 Sunday – Sam wrote his sister-in-law, Mollie Clemens, a conventional poem titled “To Mollie” [ET&S 1: 118].

May, early – Sam wrote a poem, titled, “Lines Suggested by a Reminiscence, and Which You Will Perhaps Understand,” to Ann Virginia Ruffner (b.1838?) [ET&S 1: 120].

May 7 Wednesday – Sam, in Keokuk, wrote a poem “To Jennie,” at the departure of Ann Virginia Ruffner [ET&S 1: 124]. (This is erroneously reported as 1853 in some sources.)

May 20 Tuesday – The steam ferry between Keokuk and Hamilton, Illinois struck a snag and sand up to the guards near the Illinois shore, leaving only its top deck above water. There were no fatalities. Clemens was on board and referred to “the loss of that bridge almost finished my career” in his letter of May 25 to Annie Taylor (Ann Elizabeth Taylor 1840-1916) [MTL 1: 62n1]. Note: no other reference to this event was found, and it is somewhat strange that Sam never referred or embellished the event, as he often did. Was his implication that he was aboard merely a play for Annie’s sympathy?

May 21 and May 25 Sunday – Sam wrote Annie Taylor a humorous letter. Sam stayed in Keokuk over a year. He enjoyed the companionship of Henry and Mollie’s circle of women friends.

[This first part written on May 21 is lost]

of the hurricane deck is still visible above the water. Here is another “Royal George” —I think I shall have to be a second Cowper, and write her requiem.

Sunday, May 25.

Well, Annie, I was not permitted to finish my letter Wednesday evening [May 21]. I believe Henry, who commenced his a day later, has beaten me. However, if my friends will let me alone I will go through today. Bugs! Yes, B-U-G-S! What of the bugs? Why, perdition take the bugs! That is all. Night before last I stood at the little press until nearly 2 o’clock, and the flaring gas light over my head attracted all the varieties of bugs which are to be found in natural history, and they all had the same praiseworthy recklessness about flying into the fire. They at first came in little social crowds of a dozen or so, but soon increased in numbers, until a religious mass meeting of several millions was assembled on the board before me, presided over by a venerable beetle, who occupied the most prominent lock of my hair as his chair of state, while innumerable lesser dignitaries of the same tribe were clustered around him, keeping order, and at the same time endeavoring to attract the attention of the vast assemblage to their own importance by industriously grating their teeth. It must have been an interesting occasion—perhaps a great bug jubilee commemorating the triumph of the locusts over Pharaoh’s crops in Egypt many centuries ago. At least, good seats, commanding an unobstructed view of the scene, were in great demand; and I have no doubt small fortunes were made by certain delegates from Yankee land by disposing of comfortable places on my shoulders at round premiums. In fact, the advantages which my altitude afforded were so well appreciated that I soon began to look like one of those big cards in the museum covered with insects impaled on pins.

The big “president” beetle (who, when he frowned, closely resembled Isbell when the pupils are out of time) rose and ducked his head and, crossing his arms over his shoulders, stroked them down to the tip of his nose several times, and after thus disposing of the perspiration, stuck his hands under his wings, propped his back against a lock of hair, and then, bobbing his head at the congregation, remarked, “B-u-z-z!” To which the congregation devoutly responded, “B-u-z-z!” Satisfied with this promptness on the part of his flock, he took a more imposing perpendicular against another lock of hair and, lifting his hands to command silence, gave another melodious “b-u-z-z!” on a louder key (which I suppose to have been the key-note) and after a moment’s silence the whole congregation burst into a grand anthem, three dignified daddy longlegs, perched near the gas burner, beating quadruple time during the performance. Soon two of the parts in the great chorus maintained silence, while a treble and alto duet, sung by forty-seven thousand mosquitoes and twenty-three thousand house flies, came in, and then, after another chorus, a tenor and bass duet by thirty-two thousand locusts and ninety-seven thousand pinch bugs was sung—then another grand chorus, “Let Every Bug Rejoice and Sing” (we used to sing “heart” instead of “bug”), terminated the performance, during which eleven treble singers split their throats from head to heels, and the patriotic “daddies” who beat time hadn’t a stump of a leg left.

It would take a ream of paper to give all the ceremonies of this great mass meeting. Suffice it to say that the little press “chawed up” half a bushel of the devotees, and I combed 976 beetles out of my hair the next morning, every one of whose throats was stretched wide open, for their gentle spirits had passed away while yet they sung—and who shall say they will not receive their reward? I buried their motionless forms with musical honors in John’s hat.

Now, Annie, don’t say anything about how long my letter was in going, for I didn’t receive yours until Wednesday—and don’t forget that I tried to answer it the same day, though I was doomed to fail. I wonder if you will do as much?

Yes, the loss of that bridge almost finished my earthly career. There is still a slight nausea about my stomach (for certain malicious persons say that my heart lies in that vicinity) whenever I think of it, and I believe I should have evaporated and vanished away like a blue cloud if John—indefatigable, unconquerable John—had not recovered from his illness to relieve me of a portion of my troubles. I think I can survive it now. John says “der chills kill a white boy, but sie (pronounced see) can’t kill a Detch-man.”

Your friend,

Sam [MTPO].

Sam befriended the Taylor girls, Annie Taylor, and sisters Mary Jane Taylor (1837-1916), age nineteen and a student at Iowa Wesleyan University and Esther (“Ete”) Taylor (b.1836). They were the daughters of Hawkins Taylor (b.1810?), a former steamboat captain. At this time he was a prominent businessman, well thought of, highly literate and articulate. His interests included promoting education. It is likely that Sam admired such a man, and friendships with his daughters were valued. Powers and others claim Sam was in love with Annie, but Sam’s only surviving letter to her is signed “Your friend, Sam” [MTL 1: 62]. Interestingly, Paine in MTB does not write about Annie.

May 24 Saturday – Esther Taylor (“Ete”), Annie and Mary Jane’s twenty-one-year-old sister paid Sam a visit [MTL 1: 62 & n9].

June 10 Tuesday – In Keokuk, Sam wrote his mother, Jane Clemens, and sister Pamela in St. Louis. Jane was now living with her daughter. See insert, courtesy of MTP: Vassar College Library.

My Dear Mother & Sister:

      I have nothing to write. Everything is going on well. The Directory is coming on finely. I have to work on it occasionally, which I don’t like a particle. I don’t like to work at too many things at once. They take Henry and Dick away from me too. Before we commenced the Directory, I could tell before breakfast just how much work could be done during the day, and manage accordingly—but now, they throw all my plans into disorder by taking my hands away from their work. I have nothing to do with the book—if I did I would the two book hands do more work than they do, or else I would drop. It is not a mere supposition that they do not work fast enough—I know it; for yesterday the two book hands were at work all day, Henry and Dick all the afternoon, on the advertisements, and they set up five pages and a half—and I set up two pages and a quarter of the same matter after supper night before last, and I don’t work fast on such things. They are either excessively slow motioned or very lazy. I am not getting along well with the job work. I can’t work blindly—without system. I gave Dick a job yesterday, which I calculated he could set in two hours and I could work off in three, and therefore just finish it by supper time, but he was transferred to the Directory, and the job, promised this morning, remains untouched. Through all the great pressure of job work lately, I never before failed in a promise of the kind.

Your son

Sam.

Excuse brevity—this is my 3d letter to-night.

[Notes: Sam wrote that the directory Orion was working on was “coming on finely.” Sam had to work on it sometimes and he complained about disliking it. Sam wrote at least one line of the Keokuk City Directory. He listed himself as an “Antiquarian.” Orion printed two editions of the directory, the second in 1857. He printed several hundred copies too many; the profits were disappointing. MTL 1: 63-5].

June 25 Wednesday – Sam inscribed: “Samuel L. Clemens / 1856. / June 25th, 1856” on a copy of J.L. Comstock’s Elements of Geology (1851).

August 3 Sunday – Sam spent Sunday afternoon with the Taylor girls, and wrote the following Wednesday that he “brought away a big bouquet of Ete’s (Esther Taylor) d——d stinking flowers” [MTL 1: 66].

August 5Tuesday – Henry Clemens wrote to Sam from St. Louis (his letter is not extant). Sam replied the same day as follows:

My Dear Brother:

Annie is well. Got your letter, postmarked 5th about two hours ago—come d—d quick, (to be a little profane.) Ward and I held a long consultation, Sunday morning, and the result was that us two have determined to start to Brazil, if possible, in six weeks from now, in order to look carefully into matters there (by the way, I forgot to mention that Annie is well,) and report to Dr. Martin in time for him to follow on the first of March. We propose going via. New York. Now, between you and I and the fence you must say nothing about this to Orion, for he thinks that Ward is to go clear through alone, and that I am to stop at New York or New Orleans until he reports. But that don’t suit me. My confidence in human nature does not extend quite that far. I won’t depend upon Ward’s judgment, or anybody’s else—I want to see with my own eyes, and form my own opinion. But you know what Orion is. When he gets a notion into his head, and more especially if it is an erroneous one, the Devil can’t get it out again. So I knew better than to combat his arguments long, but apparently yielded, inwardly determined to go clear through. Ma knows my determination, but even she counsels me to keep it from Orion. She says I can treat him as I did her when I started to St. Louis and went to New York—I can start to New York and go to South America.! (This reminds me that—Annie is well.) Although Orion talks grandly about furnishing me with fifty or a hundred dollars in six weeks, I am not such an ass as to think he will retain the same opinion such an eternity of time—in all probability he will be entirely out of the notion by that time. Though I don’t like to attribute selfish motives to him, you could see yourself that his object in favoring my wishes was that I might take all the hell of pioneering in a foreign land, and then when everything was placed on a firm basis, and beyond all risk, he could follow himself. But you would soon discover, when the time arrived, that he couldn’t leave Mollie and that “love of a baby.” With these facts before my eyes, (I must not forget to say that Annie is well,) I could not depend upon Orion for ten dollars, so I have “feelers” out in several directions, and have already asked for a hundred dollars from one source (keep it to yourself.) I will lay on my oars for a while, and see how the wind sets, when I may probably try to get more. Mrs. Creel is a great friend of mine, and has some influence with Ma and Orion, though I reckon they would not acknowledge it. I am going up there to-morrow, to press her into my service. I shall take care that Ma and Orion are plentifully supplied with South American books. They have Herndon’s Report now. Ward and the Dr. and myself will hold a grand consultation to-night at the office. We have agreed that no more shall be admitted into our company.

The report that Belle and Isbell are about to be married, is still going. Dick was engaged in sticking up Whig office hand bills at last accounts.

Write soon.

Your Brother,

Sam

P. S. I will just add that Annie is WELL [MTPO; MTL 1: 65-7]. The former source notes: Mary Ann Creel (b. 1822 or 1823), Mollie Clemens’s cousin, was the eldest daughter of Colonel William S. Patterson (1802–89), Iowa pioneer and legislator and Keokuk pork packer, postmaster, and later three-time mayor. She was married to Jane Clemens’s cousin Robert P. Creel (b. 1815), a brickmason who owned a successful construction business. In 1856 he was a member of the Iowa legislature, and in 1862 became mayor of Keokuk

Other notes: Several times he mentions “Annie is well,” signifying his admiration for Annie Taylor, or perhaps rubbing it in that the young lady was spending time with Sam and not Henry. He tells Henry to come d——d quick because he wants him to accompany him and Dr. Joseph S. Martin, a Keokuk physician, and a man named Ward (not further identified) to Brazil. He cautions Henry not to tell Orion of his plans, but conveys that their mother is willing for him to go “lies in the fact that she is afraid I am going to get married!” This may be a reference to the time Sam is spending with Annie Taylor. Paine says [MTB 110] that Martin and Ward “gave up the plan, probably for lack of means,” but Sam would continue to think about travel to the Amazon, which would spur his trip to New Orleans where he signed on as a cub pilot under Horace Ezra Bixby (1826-1912). Sam’s cousin, Jeremiah Clemens (1814-1865), published a scheme to build an empire on the Amazon and open trade in coca. This was one of many get-rich-quick schemes that would attract Sam during his lifetime [Powers, Dangerous 241].

October, early – Sam walked along the main street of Keokuk in swirling snow, and found a fifty-dollar bill. Astounded, he later recounted, “It was a fifty-dollar bill—the only one I had ever seen, and the largest assemblage of money I had ever seen in one spot” [Powers, Dangerous 243]. He advertised it but after five days with no claimant he felt he’d done enough:

“By and by I couldn’t stand it any longer. My conscience had gotten all that was coming to it. I felt that I must take that money out of danger” [MTB 111].

The trip to the Amazon was now possible. Sam planned to work his way down the Mississippi and board a ship for Brazil. He got Orion to use his influence with the head manager, George Rees, who agreed to pay $5 each for some humorous travel sketches he would send to the Keokuk Daily Post [MTB 112; Powers, Dangerous 243]. Sam then departed Keokuk, bound for the Amazon. The found fifty was but one of several miraculous incidents that would serve as turning points in Sam’s life—or so he later liked to claim.

October 13 Monday – Sam made a brief stay in St. Louis, staying with his mother, and sister. He attended the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association Fair. He wrote a sketch of it, titled “The Great Fair at St. Louis,” signed, “SAM,” which appeared in the Keokuk Post on Oct. 21 and then in the Saturday Post on Oct. 25 [MTL 1: 69].

October 18 Saturday – Still in St. Louis, Sam wrote the first Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass letter, burlesquing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar [Gribben 626]. Sam used dialect, and grammatical and spelling errors to characterize a country bumpkin getting the worst of it in the big city. It was a literary strategy that would come to fruition in many of his future works. Snodgrass was also the last pen name Sam used prior to Mark Twain, in Nevada, Feb. 1863. Sam earned five dollars each for these letters, his first payments for freelance writing [MT Encyclopedia, Abshire 694]. “It is likely that he departed on Oct. 18 and arrived in Keokuk the following day” [MTL 1: 69-70].

October 21 Tuesday – “The Great Fair at St. Louis,” signed, “SAM,” appeared in the Keokuk Post [ET&S 1: 378].

October 22 Wednesday ca. – Sam traveled by river packet to Quincy, Illinois [MTL 1: 70].

October 23 to 24 Friday –Sam traveled by train to Chicago and Indianapolis to Cincinnati [MTL 1: 70]. Branch gives on or about Oct. 24 as the date Sam arrived in Cincinnati [Branch, “Bixby” 2].

October, late – In Cincinnati Sam found employment as a typesetter for T. Wrightson and Co., one of the city’s leading printers. He worked there into the next spring, some six months [MTL 1: 70]. Sam’s time in Cincinnati is one of the “least documented of his life…” [MT Encyclopedia, Poole 145] but he did write two more Snodgrass letters while there. Sam lived in a boarding house. Long hours at work plus discussions with other boarders didn’t allow Sam much time for writing. In a chapter entitled “A Scotchman Named Macfarlane,” Paine writes of a “long, lank, unsmiling Scotchman” [MTB 114-15] who Sam supposedly spent many evenings with that winter. Macfarlane’s ideas paralleled many of Sam’s later misogynistic and controversial views, such as those expressed in What is Man? in 1906 [MTB 114-5]. Some researchers have theorized that Macfarlane was an invention of Sam’s, a “mask that he wore to express many of his more controversial ideas” [MT Encyclopedia, Poole 146]. Baker posits that Sam may have recalled Macfarlane as “McFarland,” a typesetter who also worked at Wrightson’s from 1855-60 and lived at different boarding houses each year [Baker 303]. Note: see young Henry Macfarlane, Late-Mar. 1866—could this be the same person?

November 1 Saturday – Sam’s first Snodgrass letter dated Oct. 18from St. Louis titled, CORRESPONDENCE ran in the Keokuk Saturday Post.

Gee Whillikens! Mister Editors, if you could a been there jest then, you’d a thought that either old Gabriel had blowed his horn, or else there was houses to rent in that locality. I reckon there was nigh onto forty thousand people setting in that theatre—and sich an other fannin, and blowin, and scrapon, and gigglin, I hain’t seen since I arrived in the United States. Gals! Bless your soul, there was gals there of every age and sex, from three months up to a hundred years, and every cherubim of ‘em had a fan and an opery glass and a-tongue—probably two or three of the latter weepon, from the racket they made. No use to try to estimate the oceans of men and mustaches—the place looked like a shoe brush shop [MT Encyclopedia, Abshire 694; Camfield, bibliog.].

November 14 Friday – Sam dated his second Snodgrass letter from Cincinnati [MT Encyclopedia, Abshire 694].

November 18 Tuesday – An untitled sketch, dated Nov. 8 and signed “L,” about a Cincinnati boarding house ran in the Keokuk Post. It is attributed to Clemens [ET&S 1: 382; MTL 1: 70]. Britton examines the piece and makes a case for it being Sam’s, and Mcfarlane being autobiographical rather than fictitious [16-17]. Note: Britton mistakenly writes the sketch was published on Nov. 8, but it was dated Nov 8 and published Nov. 18.

November 29 Saturday – The second Snodgrass letter dated Nov. 14, SNODGRASS’ RIDE ON THE RAILROAD ran in the Keokuk Post [MT Encyclopedia, Abshire 694; Camfield, bibliog.].

November 30 Sunday – Sam’s 21st birthday.

December 6 Saturday – Sam’ second Snodgrass letter ran again in the Keokuk Saturday Post [Schmidt].

Official Cub Pilot – Learning the Big Muddy

1857 – Sometime during his stay in Keokuk Clemens saw Henry Clay Dean (1822-1887), eccentric philosopher who inspired Twain’s 1905 “The War Prayer.” In Ch. 57 of LM, Twain described Dean:

Keokuk, a long time ago, was an occasional loafing-place of that erratic genius, Henry Clay Dean. I believe I never saw him but once; but he was much talked about when I lived there. This is what was said of him:

He began life poor and without education. But he educated himself—on the curbstones of Keokuk. He would sit down on a curbstone with his book, careless or unconscious of the clatter of commerce and the tramp of the passing crowds, and bury himself in his studies by the hour, never changing his position except to draw in his knees now and then to let a dray pass unobstructed; and when his book was finished, its contents, however abstruse, had been burned into his memory, and were his permanent possession. In this way he acquired a vast hoard of all sorts of learning, and had it pigeonholed in his head where he could put his intellectual hand on it whenever it was wanted. [Note: see also Rasmussen 107-8].

January – On Dec. 29, 1905 Sam answered a question from an unidentified person:

“Yes I did lay aside the ‘stick’ to resume it no more forever; but January 1857 was the time it happened, & Keokuk, Iowa the place” [MTP]. Note: the “stick” was the typesetter’s line of type. Sam soon after began his steam boat career.

January 23 Friday – In Keokuk, Henry Clemens wrote to Sam.

Your letters seem to be very strongly afflicted with a lying-in-the-pocket propensity; for no sooner had I read your last, but one, than it was consigned to one of the pockets of my overcoat, from whose “vasty depths” I have but this moment fished it up, to answer it.

You seem to think Keokuk property is so good to speculate in, you’d better invest all your spare change in it, instead of going to South America [MTBus 31-2]. Note: The writing seems familiar, doesn’t it? Henry may have been the perfect alter ego of Sam, but he was as literate at the young age of eighteen.

February 16 Monday – Sam boarded the packet Paul Jones (353 tons), on its way from Pittsburgh, for passage to New Orleans, commanded by Hiram K. Hazlett and piloted by Horace E. Bixby (1826-1912), and Jerry Mason [Branch, “Bixby” 2]. Branch presents evidence for this date over Apr. 15.

Sam claimed in his autobiography that his intention was to travel to the Amazon, but could not find passage once in New Orleans. His other longtime dream of becoming a steamboat pilot then took over and he approached Bixby about becoming his assistant. Bixby had a sore foot, which made standing at the wheel painful, so Sam did “a lot of steering” for him. Sam’s impressions of the Paul Jones:

“I was in Cincinnati . . . I packed my valise, and took passage on an ancient tub called the PAUL JONES for New Orleans. For the sum of sixteen dollars I had the scarred and tarnished splendors of ‘her’ main saloon principally to myself, for she was not a creature to attract the eye of wiser travelers” [ LM Ch.5].

February 17 Tuesday – The Paul Jones was “heavily loaded with ordnance for the Baton Rouge arsenal” [Branch, “Bixby” 3]. As the boat neared Louisville it ran onto rocks near Dick Smith’s wharf and stuck for more than 24 hours.

February 23 Monday – The Paul Jones reached Memphis [Branch, “Bixby” 3].

February 28 Saturday – The Paul Jones reached New Orleans [Branch, “Bixby” 2]. In his Autobiography:

…I inquired about ships leaving for Para and discovered that there weren’t any and learned that there probably wouldn’t be any during that century. It had not occurred to me to inquire about these particulars before leaving Cincinnati, so there I was. I couldn’t get to the Amazon. I had no friends in New Orleans and no money to speak of. I went to Horace Bixby and asked him to make a pilot out of me. He said he would do it for five hundred dollars, one hundred dollars cash in advance. So I steered for him to St. Louis, borrowed the money from my brother-in-law, and closed the bargain [Neider 98]. Note: William Moffett, sister Pamela’s husband, was the lender.

March 4 Wednesday – Commanded by Patrick Yore and piloted by Horace Bixby, the Colonel Crossman (415 tons) left New Orleans with Sam aboard bound for St. Louis [Branch, “Bixby” 2]. Sam was 21, Horace 31 and considered one of the great steamboat pilots of his time [Rasmussen 34]. Bixby had started as a lowly mud clerk (unpaid) at age eighteen. He had a temper but cooled off fast. “When I say I’ll learn a man the river, I mean it. And you can depend on it. I’ll learn him or kill him” [Rasmussen 35]. Powers describes him as “A small sturdy man…he had a prominent nose, a firmly set mouth, and hair brushed all the way across his head from a low part. He would survive a steamboat explosion near New Madrid, Mo. in 1858, pilot heroically for the Union flotilla during the Civil War, achieve greatness in his trade, and outlive Sam Clemens by two years, dying a few months after the Titanic sank in 1912, in a St. Louis suburb” [Powers, Dangerous 246]. For more about the Crossman, see Branch, “Bixby” 6-7.

March 14 Saturday – Sam dated his third and last Snodgrass letter from Cincinnati: SNODGRASS, IN A ADVENTURE [MTL 1: 70; Camfield, bibliog.]. Branch points out that on this date Sam was on the Colonel Crossman and concludes Sam updated his manuscript on board [Branch, “Bixby” 2].

March 15 Sunday – The Colonel Crossman arrived in St. Louis [Branch, “Bixby” 2].

April 10 Friday – The third and last Snodgrass letter dated Mar. 14 from Cincinnati ran in the Keokuk Post. The title, SNODGRASS, IN A ADVENTURE [MT Encyclopedia, Abshire 694].

April 29 Wednesday – Sam left St. Louis on the Crescent City (688 tons), bound for New Orleans. Bixby and Sam would make this run on the Crescent three times [Branch, “Bixby” 2].

May 4? Monday – The Crescent City arrived in New Orleans.

May 8–9? Saturday – The Crescent City left New Orleans bound for St. Louis [Branch, “Bixby” 2].

May 16–19? Tuesday – The Crescent City arrived in St. Louis [Branch, “Bixby” 2].

Note: approximate dates with ? are calculated from Branch’s assertion of three round trips rather than two, and his updating of information from MTL 1: 71.

Once in St. Louis, Sam went first to cousin James Clemens, Jr., and then to brother-in-law William Moffett to secure the loan of $100 with which to pay Bixby a down payment [MTL 1: 71].

May 22 Friday – The Crescent City left St. Louis bound for New Orleans, with Sam as the official cub pilot. From this date until May 1861, Sam learned and worked his new trade as a steamboat pilot. He made exceptional pay once licensed and loved the work. Only the closing of river traffic with the Civil War cost Sam this job. It is one of the side benefits of the war that Sam was forced off the river and into the West to discover his true calling. Still, without those years on the Mississippi, Sam might never have reached his pinnacle as the “Lincoln of our literature” [MTL 1: 71].

May 27 Wednesday – Sam arrived in New Orleans on the Crescent City, cub under Horace Bixby. Nearly all of Sam’s piloting was between New Orleans and St. Louis, some 1,300 miles. Bixby taught Sam that he must memorize every mile of the trip, that each side of the river, coming and going was different, and that at night nothing looked the same. To make it more difficult, the river was constantly shifting its banks. Sam was boggled by what was required of him [MTL 1: 71].

May 31 Sunday – Sam visited the French market in the morning. He wrote of it the next day to Annie.

June 1 Monday – In New Orleans, Sam wrote to Annie Taylor lamenting her “ancient punctuality.”

[postscript in pencil:]

P. S.—I have just returned from another cemetery—brought away an orange leaf as a memorial—I inclose it.

New Orleans, June 1st. 1857.

My Dear Friend Annie

I am not certain what day of the month this is, (the weather being so warm,) but I expect I have made a pretty close guess.

Well, you wouldn’t answer the last letter I wrote from Cincinnati? I just thought I would write again, anyhow, taking for an excuse the fact that you might have written and the letter miscarried. I have been very unfortunate with my correspondence; for, during my stay of nearly four months in Cincinnati, I did not get more than three or four letters beside those coming from members of our own family. You did write once, though, Annie, and that rather “set me up,” for I imagined that as you had got started once more, you would continue to write with your ancient punctuality. From some cause or other, however, I was disappointed—though it could hardly have been any fault of mine, for I sat down and answered your letter as soon as I received it, I think, although I was sick at the time. Orion wrote to me at St. Louis, saying that Mane told him she would correspond with me if I would ask her. I lost no time in writing to her—got no reply—and thus ended another brief correspondence. I wish you would tell Mane that the Lord won’t love her if she does so.

However, I reckon one page of this is sufficient.

Today I visited one of the cemeteries—a veritable little city, for they bury everybody above ground here. All round the sides of the inclosure, which is in the heart of the city, there extends a large vault, about twelve feet high, containing three or four tiers of holes or tombs (they put the coffins into these holes endways, and then close up the opening with brick), one above another, and looking like a long 3- or 4-story house. The graveyard is laid off in regular, straight streets, strewed with white shells, and the fine, tall marble tombs (numbers of them containing but one corpse) fronting them and looking like so many miniature dwelling houses. You can find wreaths of flowers and crosses, cups of water, mottoes, small statuettes, etc., hanging in front of nearly every tomb. I noticed one beautiful white marble tomb, with a white lace curtain in front of it, under which, on a little shelf, were vases of fresh flowers, several little statuettes, and cups of water, while on the ground under the shelf were little orange and magnolia trees. It looked so pretty. The inscription was in French—said the occupant was a girl of 17, and finished by a wish from the mother that the stranger would drop a tear there, and thus aid her whose sorrow was more than one could bear. They say that the flowers upon many of these tombs are replaced every day by fresh ones. These were fresh, and the poor girl had been dead five years. There’s depth of affection! On another was the inscription, “To My Dear Mother,” with fresh flowers. The lady was 62 years old when she died, and she had been dead seven years. I spent half an hour watching the chameleons—strange animals, to change their clothes so often! I found a dingy looking one, drove him on a black rag, and he turned black as ink—drove him under a fresh leaf, and he turned the brightest green color you ever saw.

I wish you would write to me at St. Louis (I’ll be there next week) for I don’t believe you have forgotten how, yet. Tell Mane and Ete [Mary Jane Taylor and Esther Taylor] “howdy” for me.

Your old friend

Sam. L. Clemens [MTL 1: 71].

Notes: Interestingly, Sam did not brag about being a cub pilot, or say anything about piloting or his ambitions. It is thought this was his last letter to Annie. On this date the Crescent City left for St. Louis. 

June 9 Tuesday – Crescent City arrived St. Louis. Note: The following steamboat schedules are taken from [MTL 1: 387-90].

June 17 Wednesday – Crescent City left for New Orleans.

June 23 Tuesday – Crescent City arrived New Orleans.

June 28 Sunday – Crescent City left for St. Louis.

July 7 Tuesday – Crescent City arrived St. Louis.

July 11 Saturday – Sam and possibly Bixby transferred to the Rufus L. Lackland (710 tons) and departed St. Louis for New Orleans. Sam’s comments about the Lackland:

I took lodgings at Mrs. Marmadale’s, John, higher up in Locust street, towards the big church—I mean the one in the construction of which the least little bit in the world of Christian vanity sticks out—for, do you know, John, that that edifice reminds me of the steamers JOHN J. ROE and R. J. LACKLAND? Yes, she does. You admire the craft at a distance, but when you step aboard you are astonished to find that what you thought was all cabin, isn’t and what you thought was all church, isn’t, either, by considerably more than a good deal. No, John, it’s all sham. There’s a bulkhead amidships, and behind is a place devoted to bale-rope and buckets, in the one case, and prayer-meeting in the other [Schmidt – from July 21, 1859 New Orleans Crescent, “Soleather Cultivates His Taste for Music”].

“New research by Michael Marleau indicates that during this time frame Clemens most likely made a trip up the Missouri River with pilot Horace Bixby aboard the D. A. JANUARY. Edgar Branch never placed Clemens on the Missouri River and had previously theorized that Clemens was on board the RUFUS J. LACKLAND from 11 July to 3 August 1857. Further research by Michael Marleau includes a new interpretation of Clemens’ personal journals and indicates the 1859 dates are the most likely dates of service for the RUFUS J. LACKLAND as a licensed pilot.”

Until such time as Marleau’s new citations are published, with dates and places for the purported Missouri River leg, the chronology will continue to present Edgar Branch’s conclusions. If Marleau’s information is confirmed, it would affect dates July 11 through Aug. 3 on the Lackland, and also re-date Sam’s comments about the steamboat (above) to July 21, 1859 in the New Orleans Crescent.

July 19 Sunday – Rufus L. Lackland arrived New Orleans.

July 23 Thursday – Rufus L. Lackland left for St. Louis.

August 3 Monday – Rufus L. Lackland arrived St. Louis.

August 5 Wednesday – Sam, cub pilot, was now under Zebulon “Zeb” Leavenworth (1830-1877) and/or Sobieski “Beck” Jolly (1831-1905) on the John J. Roe (691 tons). Bixby wanted to work the more lucrative Missouri and Sam had chosen to stay on the Mississippi run. The steamboat left St. Louis this date for New Orleans. It was a freighter and not allowed to carry passengers. Sam, about the Roe:

I served a term as steersman in the pilot house. She was a freighter . . . It was a delightful old tug and she had a very spacious boiler-deck—just the place for moonlight dancing and daylight frolics. She was a charmingly leisurely boat and the slowest one on the planet. Up-stream she couldn’t even beat an island; down-stream she was never able to overtake the current. But she was a love of a steamboat [Neider 79]. Note: in his A.D. of July 30, 1906 Clemens said that Zeb Leavenworth was a giant like his brother, Mark Leavenworth, and that “Jolly was very handsome, very graceful, very intelligent, companionable—a fine character—and he had the manners of a duke” [AMT 2: 150].

August 14 Friday – John J. Roe arrived New Orleans.

August 18 Tuesday – John J. Roe left for St. Louis.

August 29 Saturday – John J. Roe arrived St. Louis.

September 2 Wednesday – John J. Roe left for New Orleans.

September 10 Thursday – John J. Roe arrived New Orleans.

September 15 Tuesday – John J. Roe left for St. Louis.

September 24 Thursday – John J. Roe arrived St. Louis.

October 9 Friday – Sam, cub pilot, now under Horace Bixby again with co-pilot, possibly Isaiah Sellers (1802-1864) on the William M. Morrison (662 tons). On this date the steamboat left St. Louis [Schmidt].

October 16 Friday – William M. Morrison arrived New Orleans.

October 19 Monday – William M. Morrison left for St. Louis.

October 26 Monday – William M. Morrison arrived St. Louis.

November 2 Monday – Sam was now under the infamous William Brown, co-pilot George Ealer (1829-1866) on the steamboat Pennsylvania (486 tons). The ship left this date for New Orleans. In Chapters 18-19 of Life on the Mississippi, Sam recounted the conflict with Brown:

“…a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-shaven, horse-faced, ignorant, stingy, malicious, snarling, fault-hunting, mote-magnifying tyrant.”

From their first meeting, nothing Sam did was right for Brown. Cub Sam would lie in his bunk at night thinking of creative ways to kill Brown. Imagination was all that was left to Sam, since it was a “penitentiary offense” to strike a steamboat pilot. The other cub on board was George Ritchie, who was blessed with serving watch only for the co-pilot George Ealer, as amiable as Brown was nasty. Whenever Sam took the wheel for Ealer’s watch, Ritchie would mimic Brown, which got old fast with Sam. The conflict between Brown and Sam would peak the next June [Schmidt].

November 8 Sunday – Pennsylvania arrived in New Orleans.

November 10 Tuesday – Pennsylvania left for St. Louis. With Brown gone, George Ealer was most likely the pilot.

November 16 Monday – Pennsylvania arrived in St. Louis.

November 18 Wednesday – Pennsylvania left for New Orleans.

November 24 Tuesday – Pennsylvania arrived in New Orleans.

November 26 Thursday – Pennsylvania left for St. Louis. About thirty miles above New Orleans it was struck by the Vicksburg and lost its wheelhouse. The boat was laid up for repairs near New Orleans for eleven weeks. Some accounts say the two boats were racing, an illegal but common activity for steamboats. On Mar. 19, 1858, Sam would give testimony for a lawsuit in the matter. His remarks include observations of the boat:

November 27 to December 12 Saturday – Sam worked as a night watchman on the freight docks from seven in the evening until seven in the morning. He earned three dollars a night [Neider 100].

November 30 Monday – Sam’s 22nd birthday.

December 13 Sunday – Sam was a steersman under Joseph Edward Montgomery (1817-1902) on the D.A. January, which left New Orleans on this date. The captain was Patrick Yore. Montgomery would later serve as a commodore of the Confederacy’s river fleet, which was destroyed in June 1862 at Memphis.

December 22 Tuesday – D.A. January arrived in St. Louis.

December, late – Sam no doubt spent the holidays with his family before returning to New Orleans [MTL 1: 75].

 Henry Dead from Pennsylvania Explosion – More Steamboats, More Work

January 14 Thursday – Sam may have made the return trip on the New Falls City, an 880 ton side-wheeler freshly built that month, with Captain Montgomery. The licensed pilots at this time were Chauncy Cable and Zeb Leavenworth. Sam possibly offered his steering services in exchange for passage [MTL 1: 75].

January 20 Wednesday – New Falls City arrived in New Orleans.

February 6 Saturday – The Pennsylvania, now repaired and refitted, left New Orleans with William Brown as pilot, George Ealer as co-pilot, John Simpson Klinefelter (1810-1885) as Captain. Sam had procured a job for Henry as “mud clerk,” so called because the job required leaping to shore in places where there was no pavement or dock. The job did not pay, but was a way to rise in the ranks. Henry Clemens was nineteen, and would make six trips with his brother Sam [Powers, MT A Life 84].

February 14 Sunday – Pennsylvania arrived in St. Louis.

February 17 Wednesday – Pennsylvania left for New Orleans. The Mississippi was choked with ice, but Captain Klinefelter thought the boat could handle it. They went aground several times.

February 18 Thursday – Due to ice, the Pennsylvania had only managed to reach Rush Tower, some 40 miles south of St. Louis.

February 19 Friday – The Pennsylvania reached Cairo, Illinois in the afternoon. Other boats had either elected to stay in St. Louis or were aground.

February 25 Thursday – Pennsylvania arrived in New Orleans.

February 27 Saturday – Pennsylvania ,left for St. Louis

March 9 Tuesday – Pennsylvania arrived in St. Louis. Sam wrote to Orion and Mollie about the difficult trip of Feb. 17, which took twenty days, six or seven more than usual for the round trip.

Dear Brother and Sister:

Henry was doing little or nothing here, and I sent him to our clerk to work his way for a trip, by measuring woodpiles, counting coal boxes, and other clerkly duties, which he performed satisfactorily. He may go down with us again, for I expect he likes our bill of fare better than that of his boarding house.

I got your letter at Memphis as I went down. That is the best place to write me at. The post office here is always out of my route, somehow or other. Remember the direction: “S.L.C., Steamer Pennsylvania, Care Duval & Algeo, Wharfboat, Memphis.” I cannot correspond with a paper, because when one is learning the river, he is not allowed to do or think about anything else.

I am glad to see you in such high spirits about the land, and I hope will remain so, if you never get richer. I seldom venture to think about our landed wealth, for “hope deferred maketh the heart sick.”

I did intend to answer your letter, but I am too lazy and too sleepy, now. We had had a rough time during the last 24 hours working through the ice between Cairo and Saint Louis, and I have had but little rest.

I got here too late to see the funeral of the 10 victims by the burning of the Pacific hotel in 7th street. Ma says there were 10 hearses, with the fire companies (their engines in mourning—firemen in uniform,)—the various benevolent societies in uniform and mourning, and a multitude of citizens and strangers, forming, altogether, a procession of 30,000 persons! One steam fire-engine was drawn by four white horses, with crape festoons on their heads.

Well, I am—just—about—asleep—

Your brother

Sam

[MTL 1: 76]. Notes: from the source: Elisha Kent Kane (1820–57), a U.S. Navy surgeon, participated in two unsuccessful Arctic expeditions in the 1850s in search of Sir John Franklin, the explorer who died in 1847 while trying to find a northwest passage to the Orient. Kane published two popular accounts of the expeditions. Also: “Clemens artfully inscribed his closing and signature to suggest a gradual loss of control over his pencil.” See other notes in source.

March 11 Thursday – Pennsylvania left for New Orleans.

March 17 Wednesday – Pennsylvania arrived in New Orleans.

March 19 Friday – Sam gave a deposition in a lawsuit (Klineflelter, et al, vs. Vicksburg) over the collision between the Pennsylvania and the Vicksburg on Nov. 26, 1857. See that entry. Sam was a steersman on the Pennsylvania at that time [Marleau, “Eyewitness” 18].

March 20 Saturday – Pennsylvania left for St. Louis.

March 27 Saturday – Pennsylvania arrived in St. Louis.

March 31 Wednesday – Pennsylvania left for New Orleans.

April 10 Saturday – Pennsylvania left for St. Louis.

April 16 Friday – Pennsylvania arrived in St. Louis.

April 20 Tuesday – Pennsylvania left for New Orleans.

April 26 Monday – Pennsylvania arrived in New Orleans.

April 30 Friday – Pennsylvania left for St. Louis.

May 5 Wednesday – Pennsylvania arrived in St. Louis.

May 10 Monday – Pennsylvania left for New Orleans.

May 16 Sunday – Pennsylvania arrived in New Orleans. While there, Sam met fourteen-year-old Laura Wright (1845-1932). They spent most of the three days together. Sam was then twenty-two, but the age difference was not unusual in those days. Laura was with her father, Judge Foster P. Wright of Warsaw, Missouri, visiting her uncle, William C. Youngblood and her cousin Zeb Leavenworth on the John J. Roe. Sam went to visit Zeb and Beck Jolly, old mates from past trips. In his Autobiography Sam described Laura:

…that slip of a girl of whom I have spoken—that instantly elected sweetheart out of the remoteness of interior Missouri—a frank and simple and winsome child who had never been away from home in her life before…I was not four inches from that girl’s elbow during our waking hours for the next three days…I could see her with the perfect distinctness in the unfaded bloom of her youth, with her plaited tails dangling from her young head and her white summer frock puffing about in the wind of that ancient Mississippi time…[Neider 80].

Years later, Laura would marry a Mr. Dake. Sam claimed to have only seen Laura once, but they corresponded and Sam did visit Warsaw again (see May 13, 1880 entry for letter from Thomas H. Murray). There are echoes of Sam’s affection for Laura in several of his writings [MTL 1: 114n7; MT Encyclopedia, Baetzhold 799]. Note: Powers cites Sam’s notebook: May 6, 1858, of leaving Laura, but on that date the Pennsylvania was in St. Louis. All sources give New Orleans as their place of meeting.

May 20 Thursday – Pennsylvania left for St. Louis. When the boat was backing out, Sam had to leap for the rail from the John J. Roe, ending his visit with Laura Wright. Years later he would send her a thousand dollars in response to a letter asking for help. The loves of Sam’s life were invariably put on haloed pedestals, none more so than Laura Wright [MT Encyclopedia Baetzhold 799; Powers MT A Life 82].

May 27 Thursday – Pennsylvania arrived in St. Louis.

May 29 Saturday – In St. Louis, Sam dreamed of Henry “lying in a metallic burial case in the sitting-room, supported on two chairs” [MTB 134]. He related the dream the next morning to his sister Pamela Moffett and family, who later recalled him taking it quite serious. Henry and Sam were staying with their sister for a three-day layover. Sam left St. Louis on May 30 [MTL 1: 387] so he must have had the dream on May 29.

May 30 Sunday – Pennsylvania left for St. Louis.

June 3 Thursday – Mid-morning: [Powers, MT A Life 85] Pilot William Brown called Sam’s brother Henry Clemens a liar, and started after him with a big chunk of coal. Sam stepped in between and “stretched him out” with a heavy stool. Sam then “stuck to him and pounded him with my fists a considerable time – I do not know how long, the pleasure of it probably made it seem longer than it really was…” For a few minutes no one was steering the ship. Called on the carpet in Captain John Klinefelter’s cabin, Sam was questioned about the fight. The Captain said he was “deuced glad of it!” and advised Sam to further thrash Brown on shore. Brown refused to stay on the same boat with Sam, so was let off in New Orleans. This is the only violent act Sam was ever known to commit, though he threatened or wished more than a few other times.

June 4 Friday – Pilot William Brown forbade Sam entrance to the pilothouse for the rest of the trip. Sam was “ ‘an emancipated slave’ listening to George Ealer’s flute and his readings from Oliver Goldsmith and Shakespeare. Sometimes he played chess with Ealer, and learned a trick which he would use himself in the long after-years—that of taking back the last move and running out the game differently when he saw defeat” [MTB 137].

June 5 Saturday – After the Pennsylvania arrived in New Orleans on this date, Brown left the boat. Captain Klinefelter offered Sam a co-pilot position back up the river, but Sam did not feel ready. He left the boat with the understanding he would rejoin it after Brown was replaced. Henry Clemens stayed on the Pennsylvania as a mud clerk.

June 8 Tuesday – Sam and Henry chatted until midnight on the levee. It was their last conversation.

The subject of the chat, mainly, was one which I think we had not exploited before—steamboat disasters. One was then on its way to us, little as we suspected it; the water which was to make the steam which should cause it was washing past some point fifteen hundred miles up the river while we talked—but it would arrive at the right time and the right place. We doubted if persons not clothed with authority were of much use in cases of disaster and attendant panic; still, they might be of some use; so we decided that if a disaster ever fell within our experience we would at least stick to the boat, and give such minor service as chance might throw in the way. Henry remembered this, afterward, when the disaster came, and acted accordingly [Life on the Mississippi, Ch. 20].

June 9 Wednesday – The Pennsylvania left New Orleans at 5 PM without Sam and with Henry Clemens aboard. Klinefelter had been unable to hire another pilot, attributed by Powers to the pilot’s union [Powers, MT A Life 86].

June 11 Friday – Two days behind Henry on the Pennsylvania, Sam left New Orleans bound for St. Louis on the Alfred T. Lacey with Captain John P. Rodney and Sam’s Hannibal friend Barton S. Bowen, pilot [MTL 1: 82n3].

June 13 Sunday – 70 miles south of Memphis at about 6 A.M., the steamboat Pennsylvania’s boilers exploded, severely injuring Henry Clemens. Henry was blown free of the ship, but swam back to help rescue passengers. Either Henry did not realize the extent of his own injuries, or was scalded in his attempts to help. About 150 people were killed, including pilot William Brown. Klinefelter helped with the rescue and received only minor injuries. Henry was taken aboard the Kate Frisbee to Memphis, some sixty miles up river from the disaster [MTL 1: 80n1].

June 14 Monday – Henry Clemens arrived at Memphis at 3 A.M. with 31 other victims, some twenty-one hours after the explosion and after several transfers, including the Kate Frisbee. Henry was taken to the Memphis Exchange, a makeshift hospital. 100-degree heat increased the suffering of the wounded [Powers, MT A Life 87; MTL 1: 84n7].

June 15 Tuesday – The Lacey docked in Memphis and news of the explosion reached Sam [MTL 1: 82-3n3]. He rushed to the Memphis Exchange. He sent a telegram to brother-in-law William Moffett: “Henrys recovery is very doubtful” [MTL 1: 80].

June 15 to 18 Friday – Sam stayed by brother Henry’s side.

June 18 Friday – Sam wrote to “Dear Sister Mollie” (Orion’s wife) about Henry’s situation:

Dear Sister Mollie: / Long before this reaches you, my poor Henry, my darling, my pride, my glory, my all, will have finished his blameless career, and the light of my life will have gone out in utter darkness. O, God! This is hard to bear. Hardened, hopeless,—aye, lost—lost and ruined sinner as I am—I, even I, have humbled myself to the ground and prayed as never man prayed before, that the great God might let this cup pass from me,—that he would strike me to the earth, but spare my brother—that he would pour out the fullness of his just wrath upon my wicked head, but have mercy, mercy, mercy upon that unoffending boy. The horrors of three days have swept over me—they have blasted my youth and left me an old man before my time. Mollie, there are grey hairs in my head to-night. For forty-eight hours I labored at the bedside of my poor burned and bruised, but uncomplaining brother, and then the star of my hope went out and left me in the gloom of despair. Then poor wretched me, that was once so proud, was humbled to the very dust—lower than the dust—for the vilest beggar in the streets of Saint Louis could never conceive of a humiliation like mine. Men take me by the hand and congratulate me, and call me “lucky” because I was not on the Pennsylvania when she blew up! My God forgive them, for they know not what they say.

Mollie you do not understand why I was not on that boat—I will tell you. I left Saint Louis on her, but on the way down, Mr. Brown, the pilot that was killed by the explosion (poor fellow,) quarreled with Henry without cause, while I was steering—Henry started out of the pilothouse—Brown jumped up and collared him—turned him half way around and struck him in the face!—and him nearly six feet high—struck my little brother. I was wild from that moment. I left the boat to steer herself, and avenged the insult—and the Captain said I was right—that he would discharge Brown in N. Orleans if he could get another pilot, and would do it in St. Louis anyhow. Of course both of us could not return to St. Louis on the same boat—no pilot could be found, and the Captain sent me to the A. T. Lacey, with orders to her Captain to bring me to Saint Louis. Had another pilot been found, poor Brown would have been the “lucky” man.

I was on the Pennsylvania five minutes before she left N. Orleans, and I must tell you the truth, Mollie—three hundred human beings perished by that fearful disaster. Henry was asleep—was blown up—then fell back on the hot boilers, and I suppose that rubbish fell on him, for he is injured internally. He got into the water and swam to shore, and got into the flatboat with the other survivors. He had nothing on but his wet shirt, and he lay there burning up with a southern sun and freezing in the wind till the Kate Frisbee came along. His wounds were not dressed till he got to Memphis, 15 hours after the explosion. He was senseless and motionless for 12 hours after that. But may God bless Memphis, the noblest city on the face of the earth. She has done her duty by these poor afflicted creatures—especially Henry, for he has had five—aye, ten, fifteen, twenty times the care and attention that any one else has had. Dr. Peyton, the best physician in Memphis (he is exactly like the portraits of Webster,) sat by him for 36 hours. There are 32 scalded men in that room, and you would know Dr. Peyton better than I can describe him, if you could follow him around and hear each man murmur as he passes—“May the God of Heaven bless you, Doctor!” The ladies have done well, too. Our second Mate, a handsome, noble-hearted young fellow, will die. Yesterday a beautiful girl of 15 stooped timidly down by his side and handed him a pretty bouquet. The poor suffering boy’s eyes kindled, his lips quivered out a gentle “God bless you, Miss,” and he burst into tears. He made them write he[r] name on a card for him, that he might not forget it.

Pray for me, Mollie, and pray for my poor sinless brother.

Your unfortunate Brother,

Samℓ. L. Clemens.

P. S. I got here two days after Henry [MTL 1: 80-82]. Note: see notes in source and chapters 18-20 LM. This tragedy was one of the singular events of Clemens’ life, creating great grief and guilt.

Sam’s brother-in-law, William A. Moffett, in St. Louis, telegraphed Sam in Memphis, asking:

“Will it be better for your Mother to come down / Answer / W.A. Moffett” [MTP].

June 21 Monday – Henry Clemens died. Sam was grief-stricken. Images of a prior dream about Henry’s death haunted Sam, and magnified the trauma of Henry’s final sufferings. Sam telegraphed William Moffett: “Henry died this morning leave tomorrow with the Corpse.”

Henry had always been the model of innocence and uprightness, contrasting with Sam’s rebellious instigator. The injustice of Henry’s death was a blow that shaped Sam’s life, and increased the guilt he always carried. He felt tremendous guilt for securing the clerk job for Henry, for not being on the Pennsylvania on its last trip, and for not protecting his younger brother [MTL 1: 85; Powers, MT A Life 87-9].

June 25 Friday – Sam arrived in Hannibal with Henry’s body aboard the steamer Hannibal City. Henry buried the same day next to his father, John Marshall Clemens in the Old Baptist Cemetery. In 1876 Sam would have both bodies moved to Mount Olivet Cemetery [MT A Life 88-9]. Dempsey writes: “After emancipation, the Baptist church in Hannibal kicked its black members out of the church. Most white people quite burying in the old Baptist Cemetery, though blacks continued burying there….Mt. Olivet became the fashionable cemetery for white Hannibal Protestants” [154].

June 26 Saturday – The Clemens family buried Henry [A. Hoffman 55]. Sometime during the year Sam wrote “My Brother, Henry Clemens.” The piece was later found clipped in one of Sam’s scrapbooks; the newspaper that printed it remains unknown [Camfield, bibliog.].

July 11 Sunday – Sam, cub pilot under Samuel A. Bowen (1838?-1878), co-pilot George G. Ealer, Captain John P. Rodney left St. Louis for New Orleans on the Alfred T. Lacey. Sam loved Ealer, who read Shakespeare, played the flute and was fond of chess. Sam remembered steering for Bowen. This was the only round trip that the Lacey made that month [MTL 1: 86].

July 16 Friday – Alfred T. Lacey arrived in New Orleans.

July 21 Wednesday – Alfred T. Lacey left for St. Louis.

July 28 Wednesday – Alfred T. Lacey arrived in St. Louis.

August 4 Wednesday – The shorter run from St. Louis to Memphis and back allowed Sam to stay closer to his family after the death of Henry and make weekly visits. The John H. Dickey (403 tons) left St. Louis on this date with Sam’s old friend Sam A. Bowen, pilot and Daniel J. Able (b.1825?) captain. Andrew Hoffman claims Bart Bowen got Sam the position as steersman with his brother Sam Bowen “in order to get Sam back on the river” [55].

Sam knew Daniel Able from Hannibal days. On these runs Sam saw the growth of the cotton trade. A lot of money was being made. Besides weekly visits home, Sam also had time to write. He penned three articles about the Dickey, Captain Able, and the City of Memphis for three newspapers [55]. Branch also gives this date for Sam’s return to the river [Branch, “Dickey” 195].

August 7 Saturday – The John H. Dickey left Memphis. In these runs there was either one-day layover or no layover. All departures were Wednesdays from St. Louis, Saturday from Memphis.

August 11 Wednesday – The John H. Dickey left St. Louis.

August 18 Wednesday – The John H. Dickey left St. Louis.

August 21 Saturday – The John H. Dickey left Memphis.

August 25 Wednesday – The John H. Dickey left St. Louis.

August 28 Saturday – The John H. Dickey left Memphis.

August 30 Monday – Sam dated the article he signed as “Rambler” this day [Branch, “Dickey” 196]. This was the same pen name Sam had used for the Hannibal Journal from Apr. 29 through May 14, 1853.

September 1 Wednesday – Sam’s article was printed in the St. Louis Missouri Democrat using the pen name “Rambler” [Branch, “Dickey” 196]. The John H. Dickey left St. Louis.

September 4 Saturday – The John H. Dickey left Memphis.

September 8 Wednesday – The John H. Dickey left St. Louis.

September 11 Saturday – The John H. Dickey left Memphis.

September 12 Sunday – Heavy fog delayed the Dickey’s arrival in St. Louis [Branch, “Dickey” 198].

September 15 Wednesday – The John H. Dickey left St. Louis.

September 16 Thursday – The John H. Dickey laid over at Cairo for six hours, where Senator Stephen A. Douglas was speaking in his campaign against Abraham Lincoln [Branch “Dickey” 198].

September 18 Saturday – The John H. Dickey left Memphis.

September 22 Wednesday – The John H. Dickey left St. Louis.

September 25 Saturday – The John H. Dickey left Memphis.

September 29 Wednesday – The John H. Dickey left St. Louis.

October 2 Saturday – The John H. Dickey left Memphis.

October 5 Tuesday – The John H. Dickey arrived at St. Louis and unloaded 1006 bales of cotton, “the largest lot brought on any one boat this season” [Branch, “Dickey” 198].

October 6 Wednesday – The John H. Dickey left St. Louis.

October 9 Saturday – The John H. Dickey left Memphis.

October 13 Wednesday – The John H. Dickey left St. Louis.

October 16 Saturday – The John H. Dickey left Memphis.

October 20 Wednesday – The Dickey was laid up for repairs, so Sam and probably Sam Bowen and Captain Able, made the St. Louis to Memphis run on the White Cloud (345 tons).

October 22 Friday – Sam’s article was printed in the St. Louis Missouri Republican using the signature “C” [Branch, “Dickey” 199-200]. Note: MTPO Notes on Aug. 1, 1876 to Cist calls this “chatty river correspondence.”

October 23 Saturday – The White Cloud left Memphis.

October 24 Sunday – Sam’s article, “Memphis—The Cotton Trade—Illinois Politics—What Tennessee Thinks of Them,” was printed in the Memphis Daily Appeal [Branch, “Dickey” 201].

October 30 Saturday – Sam left St. Louis on the New Falls City (880 tons; built in January of that year, the largest ship Sam served on. Sam took passage on the boat in January as well) Pilot Horace Bixby, Captain James B. Woods.

November 8 Monday – New Falls City arrived in New Orleans.

November 10 Wednesday – New Falls City left for St. Louis.

November 17 Wednesday- New Falls City arrived in St. Louis.

November 19 Friday – New Falls City left for New Orleans.

November 26 Friday – New Falls City arrived in New Orleans.

November 29 Monday – New Falls City left for St. Louis.

November 30 Tuesday – Sam’s 23rd birthday.

December 8 Wednesday – New Falls City arrived in St. Louis.

December 13 Monday – Sam and Horace Bixby left St. Louis on the Aleck Scott (709 tons) under Captain Robert A. Reilly. Sam remarked on the Aleck Scott:

I will remark, in passing, that Mississippi steamboatmen were important in landsmen’s eyes (and in their own, too, in a degree) according to the dignity of the boat they were on. For instance, it was a proud thing to be of the crew of such stately craft as the ‘Aleck Scott’ or the ‘Grand Turk.’ Negro firemen, deck hands, and barbers belonging to those boats were distinguished personages in their grade of life, and they were well aware of that fact, too. – Life on the Mississippi [MTL 1: 14].

The Aleck Scott was the last steamboat Sam served on as cub pilot. His next assignment was pilot on the Alfred T. Lacey.

December 21 Tuesday– The Aleck Scott arrived in New Orleans.

December 24 Friday – The Aleck Scott left New Orleans.

 Running Aground and Heroism – Working the River

January 1 Saturday – The Aleck Scott arrived in St. Louis.

January 4 Tuesday – The Aleck Scott left for New Orleans.

January 11 Tuesday – The Aleck Scott arrived in New Orleans.

January 15 Saturday – The Aleck Scott left for St. Louis.

January 27 Thursday – The Aleck Scott arrived in St. Louis.

February 1 Tuesday – The Aleck Scott left for New Orleans.

February 11 Friday – The Aleck Scott arrived in New Orleans

February 16 Wednesday – The Aleck Scott left for St. Louis

February 27 Sunday – The Aleck Scott arrived in St. Louis

March 1 Tuesday – The Aleck Scott left for New Orleans.

March 8 Tuesday – The Aleck Scott arrived in New Orleans

March 9 and 11 Friday – In New Orleans, Sam began a long letter to sister Pamela Moffett, that he finished on Mar. 11. He wrote of the Mardi Gras, and Maria Piccolomini, an Italian “princess” singer Here, in part:

. . . . [first part not extant]

beginning of Lent, and all good Catholics eat and drink freely of what they please, and, in fact, do what they please, in order that they may be the better able to keep sober and quiet during the coming fast. It has been said that a Scotchman has not seen the world until he has seen Edinburgh; and I think that I may say that an American has not seen the United States until he has seen Mardi-Gras in New Orleans.

March 11 Friday – In New Orleans, Clemens finished the Mar. 9 letter to his sister:

New Orleans, Friday 11th.

I saw our little Princesses, Countesses, or whatever they are—the Piccolominis—in St. Charles street yesterday. They came down from Memphis in the cars, I believe. Their first concert takes place to-night, and we shall leave this afternoon. So we shall not hear the young lady sing. We had a souvenir of the warbler written on our sla old slate, but some sacrilegious scoundrel rubbed it out. It was “Je suis fachèr qu’il faut que nous allons de ce batteau à la Memphis.” (“I am sorry that we must leave the boat at Memphis.”) To which I replied en mauvais française, “Nous seront nous aussi très fachèr.” (We shall be very sorry, also.) Ben was going to “head” it “The Lament of the Irish Emigrant,” & sell the old slate to Barnum for five hundred dollars. Ben said he had a very interesting conversation with the “old dowager,” Madame Pic. He remarked—“I imagine, Madame, that if it would only drizzle a little more, the weather would soon be in splendid condition for young ducks!” And she replied—“Ah, mio, mio,—une petè—I not can ondersthand not!” “Yes’m, it’s a great pity you can’t ondersthand not, for it has cost you the loss of a very sage remark.” And she followed with a tremendous gush of the musical language. Then Benjamin—“Yes, madame, you’re very right—very right indeed. I acknowlege the justice of your remarks, but the devil of it is, I’m a little in the dark as to what you’ve been saying all the time!”

In eight days from this, I shall be in Saint Louis, but I am afraid if I am not careful I’ll beat this letter there.

My love to all,

Your brother

Sam [MTL 1: 87-91].

The Aleck Scott left for St. Louis.

March 19 Saturday – The Aleck Scott arrived in St. Louis

March 21 Monday – The Aleck Scott left for New Orleans.

March 27 Sunday – The Aleck Scott arrived in New Orleans

March 31 Thursday – The Aleck Scott left for St. Louis

April 8 Friday – The Aleck Scott arrived in St. Louis

April 9 Saturday – Sam was granted a license as a full steamboat pilot from the Department of Commerce in St. Louis. Until May 1861, Sam had the “best job in the world.” Note: Until copies of Sam’s pilot license surfaced in the late 1930s, it was thought by Paine, DeVoto and others (from Sam’s autobiographical estimates of eighteen months from his apprenticeship under Bixby,) that the date was Sept. 9, 1858. Sam may have recollected being allowed to pilot crafts without passengers prior to the issuance of his license, which would have been lawful at that time [The Twainian, Nov. 1939].

May 4 Wednesday – Now a full pilot, Sam left St. Louis on the Alfred T. Lacey, copiloted by Bart Bowen (brother of Sam and Will Bowen), under Captain John P. Rodney, for New Orleans. “A pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely independent human being that lived in the earth” [LM; MTL 1: 14].

Isaiah Sellers’ letter to the New Orleans Picayune:

Vicksburg, May 4, 1859.

My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans: The water is higher this far up than it has been since 1815. My opinion is that the water will be four feet deep in Canal Street before the first of next June. Mrs. Turner’s plantation at the head of Big Black Island is all under water, and it has not been since 1815. I. Sellers

The item served as grist for Sam’s “Sergeant Fathom” spoof [MTB 1593].

May 8 Sunday – Sam used the pen name of “Sergeant Fathom” and wrote a piece parodying Isaiah Sellers, the river’s “only genuine Son of Antiquity” [LM, Ch. 50]. Sellers had been a fixture on the Mississippi since Missouri became a state. He wrote “river intelligence” for various newspapers. According to Andrew Hoffman, Sam thought Sellers was “egotistical, long-winded, and incapable of trimming a tale to his audience—the last sin unforgivable in Sam’s eyes” [58]. No story another pilot could tell was beyond being outdone by Sellers. Sam’s fellow pilots had the piece published in the New Orleans Crescent in this month. Sellers was so mortified he never again wrote for a newspaper. Sam later claimed he took the name Mark Twain (which means “two fathoms”—12 feet—or enough for most steamboats to navigate) from Sellers after his death, but no record has ever been found of Sellers using the name, and when Sam first used the name, Sellers was still alive (he died in 1864). An excerpt from Sam’s parody of Sellers:

You can form some conception, by these memoranda, of how high the water was in 1763. In 1775 it did not rise so high by thirty feet; in 1790 it missed the original mark at least sixty-five feet; in 1797, one hundred and fifty feet; and in 1806, nearly two hundred and fifty feet. These were ‘high-water’ years. The ‘high waters’ since then have been so insignificant that I have scarcely taken the trouble to notice them. Thus, you will perceive that the planters need not feel uneasy. The river may make an occasional spasmodic effort at a flood, but the time is approaching when it will cease to rise altogether.

In conclusion, sir, I will condescend to hint at the foundation of these arguments: When me and De Soto discovered the Mississippi I could stand at Bolivar Landing (several miles above “Roaring Waters Bar”) and pitch a biscuit to the main shore on the other side, and in low water we waded across at Donaldsonville. The gradual widening and deepening of the river is the whole secret of the matter [ET&S 1: 126-133].

Powers asserts that Bart Bowen submitted the piece to the New Orleans Crescent [MT A Life 94].

May 10 Tuesday – Alfred T. Lacey arrived in New Orleans.

May 14 Saturday – Alfred T. Lacey left for St. Louis.

May 17 Tuesday – Sam’s Isaiah Sellers satire “River Intelligence” was published in the New Orleans Crescent, signed by “Sergeant Fathom.” Sellers were so offended he vowed never again to write for the newspapers [ET&S 1: 126]. Sam would use “Sellers” as the name of his main character in the Gilded Age, another know-it-all, if somewhat more sympathetic.

May 21 Saturday – Alfred T. Lacey arrived in St. Louis.

June 25 Saturday – Sam piloted the J.C. Swon, (678 tons) under Captain Isaac H. Jones. Left for New Orleans.

July 1 Friday – J.C. Swon arrived in New Orleans

July 3 Sunday – J.C. Swon left for St. Louis.

July 6 Wednesday – Sam wrote to John T. “Tom” Moore from Memphis. Moore was a mud clerk on the Roe when Sam was a cub pilot there. The letter appeared in the Arkansaw Traveler July 14, 1883; the original has not been found and its authenticity is in doubt, though many elements argue for it being Sam’s [MTL 1: 91-2, n2; MTB 156]. Note: this may be the same Tom Moore that presented Sam for Masonic membership.

My Dear John:—

I have made many attempts to answer your letter which received a warmth of welcome perspiringly in keeping with the present system of hot weather; but somehow I have failed. Now, however, I screw myself down to the pleasant task. It is a task, let me tell you, and it is only by the courtesy of friendship that I can call it pleasant.

I have been wondering lately what in the name of Mexican cultivation and flatboat morality is to become of people, anyhow. Years, now, I have been waiting for the summers to become cooler, but up to the present moment of agony I see no change. I wish there was some arrangement by which we could have the kind of weather we want; but then I suppose I would call for an arrangement by which we could make a living without work. What a fool old Adam was. Had everything his own way; had succeeded in gaining the love of the best looking girl in the neighborhood, but yet unsatisfied with his conquest he had to eat a miserable little apple. Ah, John, if you had been in his place you would not have eaten a mouthful of the apple, that is if it had required any exertion. I have often noticed that you shun exertion. There comes in the difference between us. I court exertion. I love to work. Why, sir, when I have a piece of work to perform, I go away to myself, sit down in the shade and muse over the coming enjoyment. Sometimes I am so industrious that I muse too long.

No, I am not in love at present. I saw a young lady in Vicksburg the other day whom I thought I’d like to love, but John, the weather is too devilish hot to talk about love; but oh, that I had a cool, shady place, where I could sit among gurgling fountains of perfumed ice-water, an’ be loved into a premature death of rapture. I would give the world for this—I’d love to die such a glorious and luxurient death.

Yours,

SAM CLEMENS [MTPO].

July 9 Saturday – J.C. Swon arrived in St. Louis

July 13 Wednesday – J.C. Swon left for New Orleans.

July 19 Tuesday – J.C. Swon arrived in New Orleans.

July 21 Thursday – J.C. Swon left for St. Louis. A sketch, “Soleather Cultivates His Taste for Music,” appeared in the New Orleans Crescent, signed by “Soleather,” attributed by Branch to Samuel Clemens [Branch, “A Chronological”; MTL 1: 93n2]. (See July 11, 1857 entry for Sam’s comments about the Rufus J. Lackand, and a note on Marleau’s recent research disputing these dates)

July 28 Thursday – J.C. Swon arrived in St. Louis.

August 1 Monday – Sam wrote a piece of fiction intended for newspaper publication titled “The Mysterious Murders in Risse.” It was never published [ET&S 1: 134].

August 2 Tuesday – Sam left St. Louis as pilot of the Edward J. Gray, (823 tons) Bart Bowen, Captain. Here was another majestic boat for Sam to pilot.

August 10 Wednesday – The Edward J. Gray arrived New Orleans.

August 19 Friday – The Edward J. Gray arrived St. Louis.

August 24 Wednesday – The Edward J. Gray left for New Orleans.

September 1 Thursday – The Edward J. Gray arrived New Orleans.

September 3 Saturday – The Edward J. Gray left for St. Louis.

September 9 Friday – The Edward J. Gray arrived St. Louis.

September 13 Tuesday – The Edward J. Gray left for New Orleans.

September 21 Wednesday – The Edward J. Gray arrived New Orleans.

September 23 Friday – The Edward J. Gray left for St. Louis.

October 1 Saturday – The Edward J. Gray arrived St. Louis.

October 2 to 25 Tuesday – Sam stayed “at home awhile” in St. Louis until he learned that he was to pilot the A.B. Chambers [MTL 1: 95n4].

October 13? Thursday – Sam wrote to Elizabeth W. Smith (Aunt Betsy b.1794 or 5) from St. Louis. Smith was not really Sam’s aunt, but a friend of his mother. As he explained it in his Autobiography,

She wasn’t anybody’s aunt in particular, she was aunt to the whole town of Hannibal; this was because of her sweet and generous and benevolent nature and the winning simplicity of her character …She and my mother were very much alive; their age counted for nothing; they were fond of excitement, fond of novelties, fond of anything going that was of a sort proper for members of the church to indulge in…they were always ready for Fourth of July processions, Sunday-school processions, lectures, conventions, camp-meetings, revivals in the church—in fact, for any and every kind of dissipation that could not be proven to have anything irreligious about it—and they never missed a funeral.” Sam used Elizabeth Smith as a model for at least three stories, “Those Extraordinary Twins,” “Hellfire Hotchkiss,” and The Mysterious Stranger [MTL 1: 93-6].

Dear Aunt Betsey:

Ma has not written you, because she did not know when I would get started down the river again—and I could not write, because, between you and I, Aunt Betsey, for once in my life I didn’t know any more than my own mother—she could not tell when she and the coal-tinted white tom-cat might hope to get rid of me, and I was in the same lamentable state of ignorance myself.

You see, Aunt Betsey, I made but one trip on the packet after you left, and then concluded to remain at home awhile. I have just discovered, this morning, that I am to go to New Orleans on the Col. Chambers—“fine, light-draught, swift running passenger steamer—all modern accommodations—and improvements—through with dispatch—for freight or passage apply on board or to”—but—I have forgotten the agent’s name—however, it makes no difference—and as I was saying, or had intended to say, Aunt Betsey, that probably, if you are ready to come up, you had better take the “Ben Lewis,” the best boat in the packet line. She will be at Cape Girardeau at noon on Saturday (day after tomorrow,) and will reach here at breakfast time Sunday. If Mr. Hamilton is Chief Clerk,—very well. I am slightly acquainted with him. And if Messrs. Carter, Gray and Dean Somebody (I have forgotten his other name,) are in the pilot-house—very well again—I am acquainted with them. Just tell Mr. Gray, Aunt Betsey—that I wish him to place himself at your command.

Aunt Betsey—the wickedness of this world—but I haven’t time to moralize this morning.

Good-bye.

Sam. Clemens

P. S.—All send their love [MTL 1: 93-96; see source notes]

October 26 Wednesday – Sam left for St. Louis as the pilot of the A.B. Chambers (410 tons), copilots James C. DeLancey and Will Bowen; Captain George W. Bowman.

November 7 Monday – A.B. Chambers arrived in New Orleans.

November 9 Wednesday – A.B. Chambers left for St. Louis.

November 20 Sunday – A.B. Chambers arrived in St. Louis.

November 23 Wednesday – A.B. Chambers left for New Orleans.

November 30 Wednesday – Sam’s 24th birthday.

December 4 Sunday – A.B. Chambers arrived in New Orleans.

December 8 Thursday – A.B. Chambers left for St. Louis.

December 17 Saturday – A.B. Chambers arrived in St. Louis.

December 20 Tuesday – A.B. Chambers left for New Orleans.

December 22 or 23 Friday – The Chambers ran aground five miles south of Commerce, Mo., where the channel flowed between Power’s Island and Goose Island—a notorious trap. It was soon stuck hard with ice piling up around it. Out of wood, the captain ordered Sam and seven others to take a yawl and row up river to fetch a flatboat with wood. Sam’s judgment in directing the craft avoided certain death by any other course [MTL 1: 95n4]. (See this note for the full story as told by Grant Marsh, first mate.)

December 29 Thursday – A.B. Chambers reached Cairo, Illinois.

December 31 Saturday – A.B. Chambers arrived in New Orleans.

January 7 Saturday – A.B. Chambers arrived in New Orleans.

January 10 Tuesday – A.B. Chambers left for St. Louis.

January 20 Friday – A.B. Chambers arrived in St. Louis.

February 1 Wednesday – A.B. Chambers left for New Orleans.

February 11 Saturday – A.B. Chambers arrived in New Orleans.

February 14 Tuesday – A.B. Chambers left for St. Louis.

February 24 Friday – A.B. Chambers arrived in St. Louis.

March 21 Wednesday – According to records accessed at the Department of Commerce, Steamboat Inspection Service in St. Louis in 1925, Sam’s pilot license, initially issued Apr. 9, 1859 was renewed on this day [The Twainian, January 1940].

March 25 Sunday – Sam became pilot of the City of Memphis (865 tons) and left St. Louis this day with co-pilot Wesley Jacobs, Captain Joseph E. Montgomery. Here was a 6-boiler, 300-foot behemoth of a boat. Branch asserts that Sam was a skillful pilot [Branch, “Mark Twain: The Pilot” 30].

“One time I mistook Capt. Ed Montgomery’s coat hanging on the big bell for the Capt. himself and waiting for him to tell me to back I ran into a steamboat at New Orleans” [MTNJ 2: 536].

April 2 Monday – City of Memphis arrived in New Orleans.

April 4 Wednesday – City of Memphis left for St. Louis.

April 11 Wednesday – City of Memphis arrived in St. Louis.

April 14 Saturday – City of Memphis left for New Orleans.

April 21 Saturday – City of Memphis arrived in New Orleans.

April 24 Tuesday – City of Memphis left for St. Louis.

May 1 Tuesday – City of Memphis arrived in St. Louis.

May 4 Friday – City of Memphis left for New Orleans.

May 9 Wednesday – A family story told by Annie Moffett Webster disclosed Sam’s political leaning in 1860 (Annie was 8 years old). That year a third political party of old Whigs and former Know-Nothings called the Constitutional Union Party met in Baltimore and nominated John Bell of Tennessee for president and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for vice president.

Since the Bell-Everett ticket was formed this week, Sam’s gift of the button to his niece would have to be after this date and before the election in November.

May 14 Monday – City of Memphis arrived in New Orleans.

May 15 Tuesday – City of Memphis left for St. Louis.

May 22 Tuesday – City of Memphis arrived in St. Louis.

May 24 Thursday – City of Memphis left for New Orleans.

May 27 Sunday – The St. Louis Missouri Republican published “a brief, matter-of-fact river report signed by him [Sam] and Wesley Jacobs, his City of Memphis copilot”

May 31 Thursday – City of Memphis arrived in New Orleans.

June 3 Sunday – City of Memphis left for St. Louis.

June 10 Sunday – City of Memphis arrived in St. Louis.

June 13 Wednesday – City of Memphis left for New Orleans.

June 19 Tuesday – City of Memphis encountered a storm about 11 AM at Terrapin Bend, 28 miles north of Vicksburg.

June 22 Friday – City of Memphis arrived in New Orleans.

June 24 Sunday – City of Memphis left for St. Louis.

June 27? Wednesday – Sam wrote brother Orion while on the City of Memphis (surviving fragments here):

What is a government without energy? And what is a man without energy? Nothing—nothing at all. What is the grandest thing in “Paradise Lost”—the Arch-Fiend’s terrible energy! What was the greatest feature in Napoleon’s character? His unconquerable energy! Sum all the gifts that man is endowed with, and we give our greatest share of admiration to his energy. And to-day, if I were a heathen, I would rear a statue to Energy, and fall down and worship it!

I want a man to—I want you to—take up a line of action, and follow it out, in spite of the very devil.

. . . .

yourself from the reputation of a visionary. I am not talking nonsense, now—I am in earnest. I want you to keep your troubles and your plans out of the reach of meddlers,—until the latter are consummated—so that, in case you fail, no one will know it but yourself. Above all things (between you and I,) never tell Ma any of your troubles. She never slept a wink the night your last letter came, and she looks distressed yet. Write only cheerful news to her. You know that she will not be satisfied so long as she thinks anything is going that she is ignorant of,—and she makes a bitter fuss about it when her suspicions are awakened:—but that makes no difference—I know that it is better that she be kept in the dark concerning all things of an unpleasant nature. She upbraids me occasionally for giving her only the bright side of my affairs—(but unfortunately for her she has to put up with it, for I know that troubles which I curse awhile and forget, would disturb her slumbers for some time.) (Par. No. 2.—Possibly because she is deprived of the soothing consolation of swearing.) Tell her the good news and me the bad.

June 28 Thursday – City of Memphis arrived at Cairo [MTL 1: 99 n2].

July 1–2 Monday – City of Memphis arrived in St. Louis.

July 28 Saturday – Sam piloted the Arago (268 tons), co-pilot J.W. Hood, Captain George P. Sloan. The boat left St. Louis on this date bound for Vicksburg.

August 3 Friday – The Arago arrived in Vicksburg.

August 4 Saturday – The Arago Left Vicksburg for Cairo, Illinois.

August 10 Friday – Sam witnessed the aurora borealis (“it was very beautiful, but it did not last very long”) and mentions it in his letter the following day.

August 11 Saturday – The Arago arrived in Cairo. Sam wrote from Cairo, Illinois to Susan I. (Belle) Stotts, sister of Orion’s wife, Mollie.

Dear Belle:

Confound me if I wouldn’t eat up half a dozen of you small girls if I just had the merest shadow of a chance this morning. Here I am, now, about 3 weeks out from Keokuk, and 2 from St. Louis, and yet I have not heard a word from you—and may not, possibly, for 2 or 3 more weeks, as we shall go no further up the river at present, but turn back from here and go to New Orleans.

Just go on, though—go on. I have had a pleasant trip, and there is consolation in that. I quarreled with the mate, and “made it up” with him; and I quarreled with him again, and made it up again; and quarreled and “made up” the third time—and I have got the shell of half a watermelon by me now, ready to drop on his head as soon as he comes out of the “Texas,”—which will produce quarrel No. 4, if I have made my calculations properly.

Yes, and I have disobeyed the Captain’s orders over and over again, which produced a “state of feeling” in his breast, much to my satisfaction—(bless your soul, I always keep the law on my side, you see, when the Chief Officer is concerned,) and I am ready now to quarrel with anybody in the world that can’t whip me. Ah me, I feel as strong as a yoke of oxen, this morning, and nothing could afford me greater pleasure than a pitched battle with you three girls. It can’t be, though. However, I’ll “fix” the mate when he comes out.

But did you girls see the Aurora Borealis last night (Friday?) It was very beautiful, but it did not last long. It reckon you girls had been home from choir-meeting about an hour when I saw it—or perhaps you were out on the bluff. Somebody remarked “Snag ahead!” and I lost the finest part of the sight.

Now, Belle, can’t you write to me, right away, to “Care of Eclipse Wharf Boat, Memphis, Tenn?” Of course you can, if you will. I sent you 2 pieces of instrumental music and a song to Ella Creel from Vicksburgh—did they arrive safely?

Oh, confound Cairo.

Good-bye my dear

Sam [MTL 1: 99-102].

August 12 Sunday – The Arago left for New Orleans.

August 20 Monday – The Arago arrived in New Orleans.

August 22 Wednesday – The Arago left for St. Louis.

August 30 Thursday – With J.W. Hood, his Arago copilot, Sam wrote “Pilot’s Memoranda,” a burlesque on pilot journaling. The piece was published over a year later in the St. Louis Missouri Republican [ET&S 1: 142]. This date is also given as the Republican publication date [MTNJ 1: 50n1;MTPO].

August 31 Friday – The Arago arrived in St. Louis.

September 8 Saturday – “Special River Correspondence” ran in the St. Louis Missouri Republican but is not now believed to be written by Sam [MTPO notes with Aug. 1, 1876 to Cist].

September 19 Wednesday – Sam piloted the Alonzo Child (493 tons), co-pilots Horace Bixby, Will Bowen, Sam Brown; Captains David DeHaven and James O’Neal. This was the last steamboat that Sam would pilot. The Alonzo Child left on this date for New Orleans.

September 28 Friday – The Alonzo Child arrived in New Orleans

September 29 Saturday – The Alonzo Child left for St. Louis. Before leaving, Sam wrote a short note from New Orleans to his brother Orion.

Dear Brother:

I just received yours and Mollies letters yesterday—they had been here 2 weeks—forwarded from St Louis. We got here yesterday—will leave at Noon, to-day. Of course I have had no time, in 24 hours, to do anything—therefore I’ll answer after we are under way again. Yesterday I had many things to do, but Bixby and I got with the pilots of two other boats and went off dissipating on a ten dollars dinner at a French restaurant—breathe it not unto Ma!—where we ate Sheep-head-fish with mushrooms, shrimps and oysters—birds—coffee with brandy burnt in it, &c &c,—ate, drank & smoked, from 1 P. M. until 5 o’clock, and then—then—the day was too far gone to do anything.

To-day I ordered the alligator boots—$1200. Will send ’em up next trip. Please find enclosed—and acknowledge receipt of $2000

In haste

Sam. L. Clemens [MTL 1: 102].

October 6 Saturday – The Alonzo Child arrived in St. Louis.

October 9 Tuesday – The Alonzo Child left for New Orleans.

October 21 Sunday – The Alonzo Child left for St. Louis

October 28 Sunday – The Alonzo Child arrived in St. Louis.

October 31 Wednesday – The Alonzo Child left for New Orleans.

November 5 Monday – Samuel Erasmus Moffett was born to Pamela and William Moffett. Sam was an uncle for the third time [MTL 1: 383].

November 9 Friday – The Alonzo Child arrived in New Orleans

November 10 Saturday – The Alonzo Child left for St. Louis.

November 11 Sunday – Sam ran the Alonzo Child aground, about seventy-three miles above New Orleans at the Houmas Plantation. It remained stuck for 28 hours [MTL 1: 105 n2].

November 12 Monday – A rising tide freed the Alonzo Child [MTL 1: 105n2].

November 18 Sunday – The Alonzo Child arrived in St. Louis.

November 21 Wednesday – Sam wrote from St. Louis to his brother Orion and family about running the Alonzo Child aground, about prices of poultry, eggs, and apples in New Orleans. Sam, ever the speculator, wrote: