April 12 Monday – Orion leased the house on Hill Street from James Clemens, Jr. , a wealthy St. Louis cousin, who bought some of John Marshall’s property [Wecter 102]. Jane and children moved back into the Hill Street house. Sister Pamela, (named for an aunt and sometimes spelled “Pamelia,” and always pronounced as such) now twenty, had been giving piano and guitar lessons in the villages of Florida and Paris, Mo. (Sam became proficient in both) She moved back to take care of her mother Jane.

April – A torchlight parade celebrated victories in the Mexican War. Sam no doubt was there, watching the pomp and a huge transparency showing “Old Zac at Buena Vista.” A band played and the streets were full of cheering townspeople [Wecter 123].

March 25 Thursday – John Marshall Clemens was buried in the Old Baptist Cemetery a mile and a half from Hannibal. Sam walked in his sleep this night and a few others. In 1876 John Marshall and Henry Clemens were later transferred to the newer Mount Olivet Cemetery, southwest of Hannibal [Wecter 118-9]. The following obituary ran in the Hannibal Gazette:

Died in this city on yesterday, the 24 th inst., after a protracted and painful illness, John M. Clemens, Esq., in the 49 th year of his age.

March 24 Wednesday – John Marshall Clemens died of pneumonia at the age of 49. Paine gives some of John’s last words: “Cling to the land,” he whispered. “Cling to the land, and wait. Let nothing beguile it away from you” [MTB 73].

Orion’s comments about his father were included in Sam’s Jan. 29, 1907 A.D. In part:

March 11 Thursday – John Marshall Clemens rode to the village of Palmyra (the county seat) to attend a judicial hearing that would clear him in a debt matter. Riding home he was chilled by a sleet storm. He became ill from the shock to his system. Judge Ezra Hunt of the Circuit Court at Palmyra “accepted John M. Clemens’ reasonable plea that his own unpaid claims against Beebe be considered as an offset to Beebe’s demands upon him—and with that decision the case fades from the records” [Wecter 112]. John Marshall may have traveled to Palmyra for this particular hearing [115].

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].

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].

November 30 Monday – Sam’s eleventh birthday.

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