Sam’s father caught him in a lie. John Marshall Clemens did not often punish his children, for his stern mien often did the trick. The family had made one or two moves since coming to Hannibal, and Sam recalled his father’s punishment in a house they’d only been in a year. During 1843 Sam’s father was building the family a new house [MTB 44]. Some sources site 1844 for the move in.
Summer – This was the first year of long summer visits to the Quarles Farm, about three and a half miles northwest of the old Clemens home in Florida, Mo.. These visits would continue until Sam was eleven or twelve (1847-8). Sam was seven on this first visit. He loved his uncle John Quarles, a warm, affable, hospitable, country man who told jolly jokes and played with the children. Quarles made hunting trips through the woods. His wife Aunt Patsy set a marvelous table; they had eight children and about thirty slaves (some sources say far fewer).
September 4 Monday – Sam played hooky from school and got home at night, so he climbed into his father’s first floor office, only to discover a corpse, James McFarland, a local farmer stabbed by Vincent Hudson in a drunken argument about a plow. Since John Marshall Clemens was a judge, the body was taken to his office to be embalmed the next day. This was the first recorded murder in Hannibal [Wecter 104].
October 27 Friday – James Kerr, as trustee, sold the Clemens home to James Clemens Jr., of St. Louis, a cousin of John Marshall Clemens. The price on the abstract was $300. The legal description: “the west 20 feet and 6 inches of the east 101 feet of lot 1 in block 9 in the original town of Hannibal” [Hannibal Courier-Post, Mar. 6, 1935 p10b].
Late Fall – On Mar. 11, 1883 the N.Y. Times, p.4 ran an article, “Judge Clemens” and attributed it from “Communication to the St. Louis Missouri Republican.” The article described John Marshall Clemens as a “stern unbending man of splendid common-sense, and was, indeed, the autocrat of the little dingy room on Bird-street, where he held his court” [as Justice of the Peace]. An excerpt:
November 30 Thursday – Sam’s eighth birthday.