October 13 Monday – Sam made a brief stay in St. Louis, staying with his mother, and sister. He attended the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Association Fair. He wrote a sketch of it, titled “The Great Fair at St. Louis,” signed, “SAM,” which appeared in the Keokuk Post on Oct. 21 and then in the Saturday Post on Oct. 25 [MTL 1: 69].
– Sam’s fifth birthday.
October – John Marshall sold on credit about $1,000 for merchandise bought wholesale to one Ira Stout, who then used the new bankruptcy laws to avoid payment. Ultimately this led to the loss of the Clemens home [Wecter 56].
– The Log Cabin Campaign rally on Market Street in Hannibal would surely have included John Marshall, a devout Whig. Jane Lampton Clemens loved parades and funerals. Four and a half year old Sam no doubt witnessed the celebration [Wecter 58]. Note: For more about Jane Clemens as recalled by her granddaughter Annie Moffett Webster in Fredonia, see May 22, 1870 entry.
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].
– Sam “took a workroom at 45 Nymphenstrasse—Frau Kraze.” He made a purchase on the “Tobacco shop on corner under Hotel Bellevue, opp. Karls Thor” and noted amounts spent [MTNJ 2: 283].
– Sam wrote from Munich, Germany to Howells, giving him the itinerary of the trip from Rome. At first they did not much like the place:
– The Clemens family was up at 6 AM and traveled all day. After twelve hours they arrived in Munich, Germany. At 7 PM they arrived, in “drizzle & fog at the domicil which had been engaged for us ten months before” [MTLE 3: 94].
– The Clemens family left Bologna at noon and traveled until 10:30 PM to reach Trent in the Austrian Tyrol, by way of “Modena, Mantua, & Verona.” Sam was acting as the courier for the group and thought himself “a shining success…so far” [MTNJ 2: 249; MTLE 3:97].
– The Clemens family left Florence at 10:45 AM and reached Bologna, Italy at 4:15 PM [MTLE 3: 97; MTNJ 2: 249]. Sam made a notebook entry that he stopped here to see Guiseppe Mezzofanti (d.1849), “because he knew 111 languages, but he was dead” [MTNJ 2: 266].