January 20 Sunday – Joseph G. Hickman (b. 1838) wrote from Florida, Mo. to Sam.

Mr Saml Clemens—

      At the solicitation of my two little girls I send you a picture of your birthplace cut by them from my county map. They say they are certain you will send them, each one a nice Chromo & also a photograph of yourself, in return. I knew you when you were a boy & remember hunting with you at your uncle’s John A. Quarles’—The old man is, as I suppose you have probably heard, dead,—has been dead about a year. He failed in business & lived for many years in a state of poverty. None of his family ever did very much in business, Ben & Polk are still living Jim is dead. Tabitha or Pap [“Puss”] youngest daughter is living—

      Florida boasts greatly of being your birth-place & there has been of late quite a little discussion in the Co papers as to what part had that honor. Your letter to Mr Holliday of St Louis of course settled the question—It was published in the papers.

      Florida jogs along after the same old style & sits like Rome on her hills,—always the same. The picture of your old house is true to nature & it is to this day the same as you see in the picture to the minutest particular. It is now occupied by the village shoe maker—there is no telling what other great man may go forth from beneath its eaves—The man in the street is intended to represent you off on your pilgrimage after style of your speech at meeting in honor of poet Whittier. The little girls say don’t forget those pretty Chromos for they will wait with patience to hear from you. I live at & own the mill owned by Boyle Goodwin on the north fork of Salt River. / Yours truly / Joseph G. Hickman.

 [MTP]. Note: Sam was only 4 when the Clemens family left Florida, so if he had memories of the place they were not many. He often rec’d notes from people claiming to have known him as a boy. His uncle John Quarles (1802-1876) had a farm near Florida where Clemens spent many summers in his boyhood; Tabitha “Puss” Quarles was a close playmate and received Sam’s financial help for many years. See also July 24, 1881 to Hickman. Mr. Holliday is unidentified.