From The Twainian ,Volume 8, Number 2 (1949), George Hiram Brownell, Editor
Recollections Of The Clemens Family In St. Louis When Sam Was a River Pilot
By Annie (Mrs. Charles L.) Webster, as dictated to Doris (Mrs. Samuel C.) Webster
As the wording of the foregoing by-line indicates, the text of the manuscript of the following article is a collaborative affair in which Annie Moffett Webster related some of her recollections of Sam Clemens, and the Moffett neighbors in St. Louis, to Doris, wife of her son, Samuel C. Webster, all of whom now live in New York. Doris, in turn, typed the manuscript, reproducing Annie's remarks.
Anne, now 96, was born in St. Louis on July 1, 1852, daughter of Pamela Clemens Moffett and William A. Moffett, St. Louis merchant. She is now the oldest living direct descendant of John Marshall Clemens and Jane Clemens, parents of her uncle, Mark Twain. Clara Clemens, Mark's daughter now living in Hollywood, is far her junior.
In an introductory note, Annie says "In April of 1857, Uncle Sam went on the river and made his sister's house in St. Louis his headquarters. The Moffett family moved from Pine Street to a larger house on Locust Street so that they would have room for Sam, and soon after his brother Henry and their mother. They did not live long on Locust Street, but moved to a house on Chestnut Street not far away.”—Editor.
The Andersons lived opposite us on Locust St. They had two children, Betty and Buck. I don’t know why they sent me to the other Presbyterian Sunday School when Mr. Anderson’s church was nearer but it was the day of the old school and new school Presbyterians and Mr. Anderson was old school and my mother was new school so that may have been the reason. The pastor of the church my mother went to was killed in the Gasconade disaster. He had worked very hard over building a new church. It was dedicated on Sunday and he was killed the same week. Many others were killed. They were attending a celebration of the opening of the new railroad and the bridge broke. I remember my father came home from his office to break the news to my mother. Years later Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher told me that this pastor was her brother.
I was always afraid of Mr. Anderson. He was so stern. His wife was from Virginia and used to get so homesick, She used to go back for long visits.
When we left Locust St. we went to Virginia for a visit to my father’s relatives. They gave me a colt and I named it Betty Anderson. Uncle George showed me the arms he had carried when he was called out to help in the John Brown raid. It was all very exciting. I had to leave my colt behind and later it was stolen by the Yankees.
When we came back we went to Planters Hotel for a while and then to the Chestnut St. house. Mrs. Gilbert (pronounced the French way) lived next door to us. She was a teacher of French in Miss Long’s fashionable school for girls and the only acting I ever did was in some sort of play and little Jessie Gilbert and I were the “jewels” in something to do with “these are my jewels.” Miss Long lived next door and Mrs. Gilbert boarded with Miss Long. Mrs. Gilbert had come from some island where her family had been killed in a terrible storm.
Montgomery Brooks was a young man who lived opposite. He was very intimate with Uncle Sam. He was a little lame and could not do many things but he was very musical and got Uncle Sam interested in music. He used to come to our house a great deal and they would play and sing together. He was very nice indeed. He had a couple of sisters. I remember once in later years writing to Uncle Sam about the Brooks girls next door and he corrected me and said, “The Brooks girls live opposite.”
The Berkeleys lived next door. Mr. Berkeley was English and Mrs. Berkeley French. She was very good company. They were very interesting people. Uncle Sam knew them well. He would go along when my grandmother and I went with the Berkeleys down to Broadway market. My grandmother thought a great deal of Mrs. Berkeley. They were very congenial. She was from near New Orleans. They had a son Jannie who was named for Mr. Berkeley's boss. Some years ago I used to see the name of Jannie Berkeley in the St. Louis papers.
There was a Major in the army on our block who was known as a Black Republican. I used to run past his house.
Captain Boffinger lived on the block for a while and then moved over on Washington Avenue, a new and more fashionable street. He was captain on one of the river boats. I'd seen him when he was in the city. I think he rather resented Uncle Sam’s treatment of that pilot from whom he took the name of Mark Twain. He didn’t like the way he made sport of him. Mrs. Boffinger was a very beautiful woman.
The Conrad family was all mixed up. It was not a very large house and the Conrads had a large family of their own and then someone died and the children all came to the Conrads and somebody else died and more children came. But so many interesting things happened. There were two older cousins, Lou and another cousin who seemed to be alone. Uncle Sam admired Lou Conrad. (See “Mark Twain Business Man,” pages 48 and 97.)
The Conrads had a baby that they called Jefferson Davis but when the time came to have him baptized the war was breaking and they decided to change his name. But when the minister asked for the name Mr. Conrad suddenly remembered that they had not decided on the new name, so he hastily said “Abraham” because that was the name of a relative. The neighborhood was very much amused when little Jefferson Davis became Abraham! (Perhaps, also, Mr, Conrad recalled that Lincoln's first name was Abraham.—Ed.)
Mrs. Pepper and her husband and their daughter Essie lived at the corner of 18th and Chestnut and next door lived Mrs. Pepper’s brother Zeb Leavenworth and their mother. The mother was very peculiar and would go out and wash down the high stone steps. Nobody else did it. If the steps needed washing the maid would do it. Zeb Leavenworth was a pilot and Uncle Sam knew him very well.
The Smalls lived near us. Mr. Small was our landlord. He was a southern sympathizer and he was assessed for the benefit of the refugees. They took all his furniture. He lived in a large imposing house which he had to give up so he sent Mrs. Small to explain that he would have to move into our house. We had to move away, but a few years later the house was for rent again so we moved back.
A Mr. Smith who lived near us used to go around from door to door with General Sherman talking up the advantages of not seceding now that Missouri had been accepted by the North and allowed to keep slaves. Gen. Sherman had lived in St. Louis way up on Garrison Avenue. I had seen him sitting on his veranda there. Mr. Smith's mother was an Arden, descended from the same family as Shakespeare's mother and his son, Arden R. Smith, became a well known actor years later.
Altogether we lived in the Chestnut St. house about ten years. When we returned to it many of the same neighbors were still there. The Laucks were still there. Many of the Lauck boys were about my age. Pierre, the one nearest my age but younger was a great one for athletics and gave athletic plays, admission 5 pins. He wanted to make some money so he went to the fruit place and asked Frank to give him a position, Frank took him in to please his family. A customer came and Pierre tried to sell him a canteloupe. The customer said “But that's no good. It has a soft spot.” Pierre said, “Oh that’s nothing. That's where it got bruised falling off the tree.” Pierre finally went to Paris and joined a big hippodrome and was killed when a rope broke.
Another boy was named Clarence, and a girl I played with was Jacqueline. Emma Lauck married a Frenchman—a very nice man named St. Vincont De Boisson(?). I liked him very much indeed. He was a Count but he said he was going to become an American and give up his title. It was a great disappointment to Emma. She had had cards engraved with the title and found she couldn’t use them. She and her mother both had babies at about the same time and the babies would play together and sometimes the niece would slap the aunt.
And thus ends Annie’s saga of those early St. Louis days from the time when Sam Clemens “went on the river” at Cincinnati, in early 1857, to that day in early July of 1861 when Sam and Orion set out across the plains for Carson City. It was a journey which marked Sam's transition from a river pilot and little Annie’s “Uncle Sam” into an internationally known author and lecturer during the following ten years.
We must believe Twain's biographer who tells us that Sam’s sister, Pamela, married a “prosperous St. Louis merchant.” None less than a good and prosperous man could have endured the trials arising from the maintenance of a home that, not always simultaneously, provided food and shelter for his own two children, Annie and Samuel E. Moffett, as well as for Jane Clemens and her three sons, Orion, Sam and Henry.—Editor.