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

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

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

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].

November 30 Sunday – Sam’s sixteenth birthday.

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].

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.

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 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].

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