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Discover Mid-America — March 2006

From Florida came Twain

The small town of Florida in Monroe County, Missouri, is the birthplace of one of the brighter lights of American literature. Samuel Clemons, later to be known and revered by his pen-name Mark Twain, first saw the light of day on Nov. 30, 1835 in a small two-room cabin in the tiny village. The event was celebrated by Halley’s Comet, which made its next appearance in 1910, the year Mark Twain died.

When he was still an infant, the family moved to Hannibal, which dominated much of Clemons’ life, and claims an appropriately larger share of Mark Twain nostalgia (and tourist dollars). It was in Hannibal where the family was living in 1847 when Clemons’ father died, leaving many debts.

To repay some of the family’s obligations and establish his own livelihood, Clemons worked for his brother, Orion, a fledgling publisher in Keokuk, IA. Samuel helped with his brother’s business directory and wrote occasional stories for the small paper that Orion produced.

By the 1850s steam boating had reached its zenith with numerous packets plying the Mississippi. Samuel Clemons had watched the boats churning past Hannibal, and dreamed of becoming a steamboat pilot. He decided to pursue that dream, working hard as an apprentice to master the river’s mysteries.

But although steamboats would influence his life and writing, he would never make his living in a pilothouse. The Civil War and the advent of rail transportation brought the steamboat era to a close, and Samuel Clemons decided to pursue his writing career. His penname of Mark Twain is thought to be taken from the term used by rivermen to describe the safe-water depth of two fathoms.

He next went west and worked on newspapers in Virginia City, NV and other mining towns before moving to San Francisco, where his newspaper career continued. During this period, he wrote a short story, The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, which helped establish him as a writer. Working for the Alta California newspaper, Clemons was dispatched to Hawaii to get material for a series of articles. The articles were well received, and he went on a lecture tour, a hugely successful effort that demonstrated his theatrical talents.

His first book, The Innocents Abroad, was based on a series of reports from Europe and the Middle East for the newspaper Alta California. It was a big success, and catapulted him into the forefront of the American literary scene, a position he retained for the rest of his life.

In 1870, he married and left for Buffalo, NY, and later Hartford, CT. Although he spent the rest of his life in the East, he often returned to Hannibal, and immortalized the area in his The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and his non-fiction work, Life on the Mississippi.

The cabin where Samuel Clemons was born is preserved inside the museum at the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site, located just off Hwy. 107 in the Mark Twain State Park. The site is in the middle of a 1,000-acre park adjacent to Mark Twain Lake. Visitors to the site can view the two-room cabin, a film about the author’s life, first editions of his important works, part of the handwritten manuscript for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and furnishings from his home in Hartford, CT. A red granite monument in the nearby village of Florida marks the original site of the cabin.

Winter hours (Nov. 1 through March 31) at the Historic Site are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday. April 1 through Oct. 31, the museum returns to its regular hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $2.50 for adults, $1.50 for ages 6-12, and free for children under 6. Call 573-565-3449 or visit www.mostateparks.com.

Ken Weyand can be reached at kweyand1@kc.rr.com

> Traveling with Ken Archive — past columns