St. Louis to Alton, Illinois - 1853

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August 19, 1853, 11am, Sam boarded the sidewheeler steamer Cornelia and traveled to Alton, Illinois. The Cornelia was sunk just two years later, running into a rock at Chain of Rocks. Chain of Rocks is a geological formation just below the confluence of the Missouri River and the Mississippi River.

Samuel L. Clemens Born November 30, 1835

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I was born the 30th of November, 1835, in the almost invisible village of Florida, Monroe county, Missouri. I suppose Florida had less than three hundred inhabitants. It had two streets, each a couple of hundred yards long; the rest of the avenues mere lanes, with rail fences and corn fields on either side. Both the streets and the lanes were paved with the same material—tough black mud, in wet times, deep dust in dry.

Return to the US

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From Hill, 1973:

The Clemens family booked passage on the Prince Oscar and left the Villa di Quarto on June 20, stopping for four days at the Hôtel de Ville in Florence. ...

The family boarded the ship June 28, ...

Then, as the Prince Oscar was preparing to leave, Clemens discovered that the death certificate and consular papers were missing.... the Hamburg-American Steamship Company had forwarded these documents to New York by an earlier ship, ...

Taking Livy to Florence

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From Hill, 1973:

On October 5, after a final visit to Susy's grave, the Clemens family moved from Elmira to New York City, where it spent the last weeks before departing at the Grosvenor Hotel....  And on the evening of the twenty-third the family boarded the Princess Irene in high hopes of Olivia's recovery and their continued financial tranquility.

Quarry Farm - 1903

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From Hill, 1973:

"...Mrs. Clemens was doing so well that she and her husband decided to make a trip to Elmira in July, leaving Clara and Jean in Riverdale.  Clemens told the Huttons: 

We carried Mrs. Clemens down the hill at 8:30 in the morning, at Riverdale; lifted her into the launch and all on board Mr. Rovers's yacht, out in the river; steamed down to the DL&W dock at Hoboken, carried the madam aboard the 10 A.M. train and came through to Elmira in the suffocating heat, arriving at 4:40...

Back to Riverdale

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From Hill, 1973:

"When he came to move Olivia from York Harbor to Riverdale on October 15, Clemens fretted about the method of transportation:  asking for the Kanawha, then canceling the yacht and deciding on a train, arranging for a special car and special engines."