Note: Additions and corrections since the print run in April, 2009. New material and corrections of old material are ongoing. This work is never “finished.” I wish to provide up to date information with each book sold. Up to the minute updates may now be found online, at http://marktwaindaybyday.webs.com/

Spelling correction throughout: – Katharine I. Harrison, not “Katherine.”

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March 10 Thursday – The New York Tribune editorial of this date, “How Juries are Obtained in This Town,” evoked a spot in Sam’s notebook:

November – Sam sent a correspondence card to an unidentified person with this maxim, altering “the great & good Franklin”:

“Never put off till tomorrow what can be put off till day after tomorrow just as well” [MTLE 4: 123].

November to December 15, 1879 – Clemens wrote to unidentified. Cue: “I consider it slander…”; not found at MTP though catalogued as UCCL 13217.

Mark Twain finishes his Vandals Tour then strives for respectability.   Continue with  March 21, 1869

 Index

The index is organized alphabetically, not chronologically. The following have not been indexed: fictional characters, most newspaper articles and subheadings, every subjects of every letter, whether paraphrased, summarized, or quoted.

Ahluwalia, Harsharan Singh. “Mark Twain in India.” Mark Twain Journal. 34.1 (1996): all.

Albin, Craig. “Luck.” Mark Twain Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993.

Allingham, Philip V. “Mark Twain in Winnipeg, Manitoba: July 26-28, 1895.” Mark Twain Journal 36.2 (1998): 2-12.

Abshire, Janet L. “Snodgrass, Thomas Jefferson.” The Mark Twain Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993: 694.

January 5 Sunday – The New York Times, p.11 ran a long description of the life and biography of ex-senator from New York, Roscoe Conkling (1829-1888). Conkling’s biography was published by Webster & Co. Interestingly, Conkling and Sam had both opposed the 1876 candidacy of James G. Blaine.

The Charleston, S.C. Sunday News, p.5 under “New Books” praised CY:

Births of Margaret, Benjamin, Pleasant and Samuel Clemens – Move from Tennessee to
Florida, Missouri – Financial Panic and Hard Times – Henry Clemens Born
Sister Margaret Died – John Marshall Clemens Became Judge – Moved to Hannibal Sammy
Survived Infancy

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.

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].

November 30 Wednesday – Baby Sam’s first  birthday.
 

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.

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

The early part of the decade saw an inflationary boom, which led to The Panic of 1837. The crisisoccurred 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.

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.

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].

Henry Clemens, the youngest child of John Marshall Clemensand 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].

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

Sam’s third birthday.

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].

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].

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