The Bloomington area was at the edge of a large grove occupied by the Kickapoo people before the first Euro-American settlers arrived in the early 1820s.

Springfield was originally named "Calhoun", after Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. The land that Springfield now occupies was settled first by trappers and fur traders who came to the Sangamon River in 1818. The first cabin was built in 1820, by John Kelly. It was located at what is now the northwest corner of Second Street and Jefferson Street. In 1821, Calhoun was designated as the county seat of Sangamon County due to fertile soil and trading opportunities.

Alton was developed as a river town in 1818 by Rufus Easton, who named it after his son. Easton ran a passenger ferry service across the Mississippi River to the Missouri shore.

“The Manitoba was one of Winnipeg’s show buildings,” according to a February 9, 1899, editorial in the Telegram. “Its imposing dimensions testified to the importance of the prairie capital, as well as the enterprise of the corporation which erected it; and the comfort and luxury which it afforded to the travelling public, predisposed strangers favourably towards the city and made Winnipeg a welcome stopping-off place in the itinerary of tourists.”

The brick building where Twain spoke still stands as a two-story building with a Chinese restaurant on the lower level.  The third floor was a large community room where Twain spoke and it was removed  some time later after wind damage.

Twain, of course, was not widely known at the time so he warranted only a squib in the weekly Norwalk Reflector  five days later:

Thompsonville was established in the 19th century as a carpet-manufacturing community. Orrin Thompson, from whom the community takes its name, built a dam across Freshwater Brook in 1828 and opened the first carpet mill in 1829. Thompson's first mill, named "White Mill", employed skilled weavers brought from Scotland. Initially its product was largely flat-woven ingrain carpeting, an inexpensive type of carpeting, but over time it added more expensive weaves, such as three-ply ingrain and loop brussels.

Thompsonville is one of the thirteen villages within the city of Newton in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. 

"150 years ago, on February 23, 1869, a young Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name “Mark Twain,” came to Trenton. He drew a crowd to the Taylor Opera House on South Broad Street where he gave a speech on the topic of his then-recent trip to Europe and the Holy Land. At age 34, Mark Twain was just beginning to make a name for himself at the start of his great literary career.  "    Mark Twain in Trenton

Taylor Opera House was an opera house in Trenton, New Jersey. It was the city's first theater, and was founded by John Taylor, creator of Pork Roll and one of Trenton's leading citizens. The building first opened March 18, 1867 at 18 S. Broad Street. A historical marker was placed on the site after its demolition.