Clemens Family Moves to Hannibal - Day By Day

August 12 Friday – Though a boy of nearly seven, Sam probably was witness to the sinking of the side wheel steamboat Glaucus at Hannibal. Such an event would have brought the whole town out to gawk. Sam noted the sinking in his notebook in 1883 [MTNJ 3: 30n52]. https://daybyday.marktwainstudies.com/category/volume-1/26/68

Sammy’s Idyllic Childhood – Summers at Quarles Farm – First Schooling
Brother Benjamin Died – Family Moved to Hill Street House – Murder Witnessed
Many Adventures – Cholera, Measles and Death – John Marshall Clemens Died
Sam the Printer’s Devil

Sam’s  father traveled to Tennessee hoping to collect old debts and raise money  on the infamous Tennessee Land, some 75,000 acres, which  became a millstone to the family; the land was ultimately sold in the 1880s for  not much more than John Marshall paid for it. John took a slave, Charlie, to sell, but did not get what he expected. In fact the trip was a total failure, costing Sam’s father  about $200 [Powers, Dangerous 124-5]. Together, John Marshall and son Orion had a remarkable string of business failures.

Sam’s father caught him in a lie. John Marshall Clemens did not often punish his children, for his stern mien often did the trick. The family had made one or two moves since coming to Hannibal, and Sam recalled his father’s punishment in a house they’d only been in a year. During 1843 Sam’s father was building the family a new house [MTB 44]. Some sources site 1844 for the move in.

February  18 Thursday – Sam’s mother, Jane Clemens, joined the First  Presbyterian Church of Hannibal [Dempsey  55]. Note: Dempsey found no record  that John Marshall Clemens or his sons ever joined the church.
 

February  22 Monday – Sam’s mother, Jane Clemens, was baptized at the First  Presbyterian Church of Hannibal [Dempsey  55].
 

February  7 Sunday – Sam’s sister Pamela joined the First Presbyterian Church of  Hannibal [Dempsey 55].
 

January 5 or 7 Friday – Sam’s father wrote on his failed trip of being unable to collect debts or even to sell Charlie for $40 in Vicksburg [MTB 43]. Powers suggests he sold Charlie for ten barrels of tar [Powers, Dangerous 124]. Wecter cites the letter date as Jan. 5 and the sale for tar as Jan. 24 [74].

July 17 Sunday ca. – (After this day) – Sam’s brother, Orion, now seventeen and a “very good journeyman printer,” obtained a position in St. Louis, and was able to send support home for the family, three dollars out of ten per week [MTB 44]. (Powers characterizes it as Orion being “sent off.”) Orion wrote home that he was trying to imitate the life of Benjamin Franklin, even to the extent of living on bread and water. While in St. Louis until 1849, Orion made friends with attorney Edward Bates (1793-1869) and began studying law in his office.

– 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.
 

– 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.
 

Late Fall – On Mar. 11, 1883 the N.Y. Times, p.4 ran an article, “Judge Clemens” and attributed it from “Communication to the St. Louis Missouri Republican.” The article described John Marshall Clemens as a “stern unbending man of splendid common-sense, and was, indeed, the autocrat of the little dingy room on Bird-street, where he held his court” [as Justice of the Peace]. An excerpt:

May 12 Thursday – Ten-year-old Benjamin L. Clemens died after a weeklong, unexplained illness. “Bilious fever” they sometimes called such illnesses. Sam was six. He remembered his parents’ grief; Orion recalled that his parents kissed—the only time the Clemens children had seen them do this [MTB 44]; Powers writes that it was Sam who remembered; it’s likely both recalled the event. In her grief, Sam’s mother made all the children approach the bedside of Benjamin and touch his dead cheek.

– John Marshall had been drafted for a border war with Iowa over a disputed boundary, but the matter was settled by this time [Wecter 56].

John Marshall Clemens sold properties around Florida for $3,000 to speculator Ira Stout. At the same time, John purchased a quarter of a city block in Hannibal on the Mississippi, about forty miles east of Florida, for what Wecter calls “the thumping price of $7000 paid in full” [Wecter 51-2; Powers, MT A Life 21]. Note: “Hannibal” was also a family name with no connection to the town. It may be argued that John paid too much for the quarter block in Hannibal.

 John Marshall sold another large parcel, 326 acres near the Ralls County line, for $2000 to Ira Stout [Wecter 52].

– Sam’s fifth birthday.
 

Sam’s fourth birthday.

November 30 Tuesday – Sam’s sixth birthday.
 

November 30 Wednesday – Sam’s seventh birthday.

November 30 Thursday – Sam’s eighth birthday.

The Clemens family moved to Hannibal: John, Jane, Orion, Pamela, Benjamin, Sammy (nearly age four), the baby Henry, and a slave girl Jennie. Paine, in Boy’s Life of Mark Twain says the family lived first at Pavey’s Hotel(later Planter’s Hotel). The Paveys later moved to St. Louis. Wecter gives the time of the move as “about mid-November” [56].

The first home for the Clemens was the Virginia House, a rickety two-story hotel close to the river at the northwest corner of Main and Hill Streets [Varble 129].

October 13 Thursday – Exactly one year before, John Marshall and Jane Clemens lost their real estate in Hannibal, interest being transferred to James Kerr, St. Louis merchant and debt holder. On this day the property was auctioned but failed to meet the amount of the debt [Dempsey 49].

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].