Following the end of his career as a Mississippi River Boat pilot, Sam Clemens headed for Carson City in the Nevada Territory, with his elder brother, Orion. He expected to "go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and pick up two or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on the hillside. And by and by he would become very rich, and return home by sea, ...". He was sorely disappointed and soon became a newspaper reporter.

On February 16, 1857, Sam Clemens took passage from Cincinnati, Ohio on board the packet Paul Jones, piloted by Horace Bixby. Somewhere along the journey Bixby agreed to teach Sam to pilot a Mississippi River Boat. On March 4, 1857, they departed New Orleans on board the Colonel Crossman with Horace as pilot and Sam as his cub pilot. On May 4, 1859 Sam would be a pilot on the Alfred T. Lacey. By May of 1861 Sam's career as a pilot would end.

Samuel L. Clemens was born in the small village of Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835. His family moved from there to Hannibal, Missouri in mid November of 1839. Sam stayed there until the age of seventeen when he set out to see the world and support himself. His years in Hannibal provided the background for his best known books, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".