October 26 Friday – The U.S. Senator from Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1858) was an “occasional visitor to town,” and on this day gave a “large rally of Hannibalians in fiery vein.” Wecter notes that “Sam Clemens shared Tom Sawyer’s emotions when the ‘greatest man in the world…Mr. Benton, an actual United States Senator, proved an overwhelming disappointment—for he was not twenty-five feet high’ ” [Wecter 195].
Fall –Sam remembered in his Autobiography the scene of practicing for his part as a bear in his sister’s autumn party. He’d chosen a vacant house to try out moves for his part, and went there with a “little black boy, Sandy….” Not noticing a screen in the corner and costumes on a hook, Sam pranced about in his birthday suit until “a smothered burst of feminine snickers” came from the other side of the screen, which had enough holes to make it interesting for the voyeurs. After a clamorous escape, Sam avoided girls for several weeks.
Summer, early – Hannibal suffered from a cholera epidemic.
December – The California gold rush was on. Hannibal felt the impact. Emigrants rushed to Hannibal and St. Joseph, eager to travel west. Some 300 Hannibal residents would head west. Sam later ran into a few of his townspeople in California. By the last week in December, Hannibal newspapers reported that the “gold dust of California” is “carrying away crowds of our citizens” [Wecter 216].
November 30 Thursday – Sam’s thirteenth birthday.
October 12 Thursday – The Hannibal Gazette, where Sam was apprenticing, changed its name to the Missouri Courier [Benson 2]
Summer – Either this summer or the prior was the last year of annual visits to Quarles Farm near Florida, Mo These visits to the farm where hunting was allowed (the Clemens boys were never allowed guns), food was bountiful, and Sam thought the slaves (who were never sold or split up from families) were the most joyous people in his boyhood [Wecter 91].
June – The family now in worse financial straits than ever, Sam landed his first full-time job as a printer’s devil for the Missouri Courier, owned by Joseph P. Ament. He worked only a half block from the family home. The journalism field has prepared many a great writer, and typesetting words is where Sam Clemens got his start. A printer’s devil made up pages one letter at a time. Sam was paid meals only and two suits of clothes a year, but got only one, a suit way too big for him.
May 3 Wednesday – 24-year-old Joseph Ament purchased the Hannibal Gazette and moved his Missouri Courier to Hannibal. He established his newspaper in the second-floor Gazette offices on Main Street, over Brittingham’s Drugstore [Dempsey 155]. The merged papers went under the name of the Hannibal Gazette [Benson 2].
February 19 Saturday – Orion made a temperance speech in Hannibal [Wecter 294n5].