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].