Hard times forced the family to move in with Dr. Orville R. Grant’s family (above Grant’s Drug store; Grant 1815?-1854). Jane Clemens cooked for both families in exchange for rent. For more on the Grant family see AMT 2: 590].

John Marshall Clemens led a civic group organizing a rail line from Hannibal to St. Joseph. The line was chartered and completed twelve years after his death.

March 14 Saturday – William P. Owsley, was acquitted of murdering Samuel Smarr by a Palmyra jury. [Wecter 108]. United States declares war on Mexico

Summer – Cholera claimed 30 lives in Hannibal. Many fled the town [Wecter 213].

August – Hannibal slave dealer William Beebe sued and gained a judgment against John Marshall Clemens for $126.50 stemming from debts for the store [Wecter 112].

September 10 Thursday – John Marshall Clemens wrote to Buffum & Co., in New York concerning sale of the Tennessee Land. John had canceled the agency of Meredith & McCullough and gave “exclusive sale of my Tennessee lands for two years on the terms propose.—That you will be at the expense of agencies and advertising as in your letter mentioned; and will make sales as speedily and advantageously as possible” [MTBus 11]. Note: The Tennessee Land created a rift between Sam and Orion in later years, and hung around the family’s neck until the 1880s.

October 16 Friday – James Clemens, Jr. leased the Hill Street house to Orion Clemens for a period of 25 years at a rental of $28 per year [Hannibal Courier-Post, Mar. 6, 1935 p10b].

November – John Marshall Clemens chaired a citizens’ committee to promote a macadamized road between Hannibal and St. Joseph, Mo. [Wecter 110].

Henry La Cossitt, new to Hannibal, established the Democratic Gazette [Wecter 201]. Note: Wecter surmises that Sam Clemens was briefly an apprentice for the Gazette.

November 5 Thursday – Hannibal Gazette announced John Marshall Clemens’ candidacy for clerk of the circuit court in 1847’s election.

November 6 Thursday – County records show $8.25 for coffin Jimmy Finn, pauper, town drunk and model for Huck Finn’s Pap [Wecter 150].

November 30 Monday – Sam’s eleventh birthday.

Winter of 1846-7 – Now president of the Hannibal Library Institute, John Marshall Clemens worked for the establishment of a Masonic college in Hannibal [Wecter 111].

December 17 Thursday – Hannibal slave dealer William Beebe was granted a writ of attachment ordering the sheriff to sell “the goods and chattels and real estate of the said John M. Clemens” [Wecter 112].