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].
October 13 Wednesday – The Clemenses were forced to transfer the title of their home property to James Kerr, a St. Louis dry-goods merchant to whom they were most indebted [Wecter 70]. Note: The indebtedness may have stemmed from funds John Marshall borrowed to buy the Tennessee Land, incurred before the family moved to Hannibal.
September – John Marshall Clemens sat on a jury at Palmyra which condemned and sent to the penitentiary three abolitionists for a term of twelve years [Dempsey 42; Wecter 72]. Note: See Dempsey, chapters 5 & 6, for a full account of the “crime” and trial of James Burr, George Thompson, and Alanson Work, “the biggest criminal case in Marion County.”
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].
Spring – Sam started school at Mrs. Horr’s school in Hannibal, a small log cabin at the southern end of Main Street, near Bear Creek. Elizabeth Horr (ca.1790-1873) and daughter Miss Lizziewere the only teachers. On Sam’s first day of school he broke a rule twice and was told to go find a switch for his punishment. He kept looking for smaller and smaller switches until he came back with a cooper’s shaving (a cooper is a barrel maker). Later, Miss Mary Ann Newcomb(1809-1894) would help at the school [Wecter 54].
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).