In Sam's Boyhood Home - Day By Day

January 9 Thursday – A fire broke out one door from the print shop where Sam worked with brothers Orion, Henry, and a newcomer who was the butt of many of Sam’s practical jokes, Jim Wolfe. This episode was the basis for a humorous sketch printed a week later [Wecter 236].

July 1 Thursday – Sam became an uncle with the birth of Annie E. Moffett to Sam’s sister Pamela Ann and her husband, William Anderson Moffett. Annie would always be a favorite of Sam’s; she married Charles Luther Webster (1851-1891) in 1875, the man Sam would hire to run his publishing business [MTL 1: 382].

July 10 Thursday – The Hannibal Western Union printed an unsigned article, “The New Costume,” attributed to Sam [Camfield, bibliog.]. It seems likely that Sam wrote other sketches and articles for Orion’s paper, now lost. Note: Dempsey attributes the article to “one of the Clemens boys” [209].

July 15 Thursday – Sam wrote a facetious piece of “the Dog Law” which from that day forth ordered all canines to be licensed at a dollar a head and wear collars. An early case of Sam pulling legs—readers’ legs, not dogs’ [Wecter 249].

The Hannibal Journal (formerly the Hannibal Western Union) printed an unsigned article, “Paragraph on a Military Company Formed by Town Boys,” attributed to Sam [Camfield, bibliog.].

July 23 Tuesday – Aunt Martha Ann (Patsy) Quarles died. She was Jane Lampton Clemens’ sister. Less than two years later, John Quarles sold his farm [Wecter 290n20].

July 24 Saturday – Sam reported that a calf had been bitten by a mad dog. A not-so-serious proposal, signed “A Dog-be-deviled Citizen,” called for all dogs to be exterminated. The dog pieces brought Ament’s Hannibal Courier to the defense of dogs, and the Hannibal Tri-Weekly Messenger also joined in. It’s likely that Orion humored Sam these small needles in print, or perhaps did not notice the humor in them. Such was Orion’s nature, humorless, oblivious  [Wecter 249].

July 4 Thursday – Sam marched in the parade with the Cadets of Temperance, and later recollected that he picked up a cigar butt from the street, smoked it, and quit the group [Wecter 153].

June – The family now in worse financial straits than ever, Sam landed his first full-time job as a printer’s devil for the Missouri Courier, owned by Joseph P. Ament. He worked only a half block from the family home. The journalism field has prepared many a great writer, and typesetting words is where Sam Clemens got his start. A printer’s devil made up pages one letter at a time. Sam was paid meals only and two suits of clothes a year, but got only one, a suit way too big for him.

June 27 Thursday – “Doing’ a Dandy,” a sketch of Sam’s ran in Ament’s Courier under the pseudonym of “Fred Ballard” [Wecter 247].

June 5 Thursday – Orion’s newspaper, the Hannibal Journal, reported on this day that steamboats “were burying their passengers at every wood yard, both from cabin and deck.” Cholera had hit the river again, claiming 24 citizens of Hannibal [Wecter 214].

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].

March 14 Saturday – William P. Owsley, was acquitted of murdering Samuel Smarr by a Palmyra jury. [Wecter 108].

March, early – An accident at the Journal ruined several columns of type, as reported by the Messenger on Mar. 5. Orion announced the paper would now be a daily as well, to make up for lost editions, under the name the Hannibal Daily Journal [Benson 7].

March 19 Wednesday – From the Hannibal, Mo. Library web site: “In 1840 many citizens of Hannibal, Missouri felt a need for a public library. Judge John Marshall Clemens (Mark Twain’s father), Zachariah Draper (1798-1856), Dr. Hugh Meredith, and Samuel Cross (1812-1886) took on the responsibility of this task. They organized the Hannibal Library Institute. On March 19, 1845 this library was chartered by the General Assembly of Missouri. The books were kept in Dr. Meredith’s office in a building at the corner of Main and Bird Streets. This was not a free library.

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 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 25 Thursday – Sam wrote the descriptive piece, “Hannibal Missouri,” which he submitted to the Philadelphia American Courier, published on May 8, 1852 [ET&S 1: 68]. In this glowing description of his hometown, Sam included the Mississippi River, the St. Joseph Railroad, and the cave south of town. Dempsey points out he “completely omitted any reference to slaves or slavery” [168].

May 1 Wednesday – Sam marched in the May Day parade with the Cadets of Temperance [Wecter 153].

May 1 Saturday – The Carpet Bag, a Boston journal that provided rustic humor, and was often sent to Western towns, carried a 425-word sketch of Sam’s titled “The Dandy Frightening the Squatter.” It was signed with Sam’s initials, “S.L.C.” The sketch related a steamboat passenger showing off to female passengers by acting brave, only to be one-upped by a Hannibal man [A. Hoffman 29]. No payment was made, but the glory was all Sam’s.

May 10 Tuesday – A signed “Grumbler” Journal item titled, “To Rambler,” continued the back and forth faux controversy. “Sunday Amusements,” an article written for the Journal, and signed only “J” is attributed to Sam [ET&S 1: 376]. This verbal sparing anticipated the exercises with “The Unreliable,” a rival Virginia City journalist.

May 12 Thursday – Four items appeared in the Journal using Sam’s various pen names or unsigned and attributed to him: “Drunken Spree on the Ferry Boat,” (unsigned); “For the Daily Journal,”(signed by “Peter Pencilcase’s Son, John Snooks”); “Increase in the Population of England for 1853,” (unsigned); and a poem, “Separation,” (“Rambler”) [Camfield, bibliog.].

May 13 Friday –Wecter says that Sam gave “his most polished effort just as Orion returned” [260]. This Journal article was titled, “Oh, She has a Red Head,” signed by “Son of Adam,” a defense of all who had red hair, claiming that Jefferson and Adam and even Jesus Christ had red hair [ET&S 1: 102].  This time, however, Orion allowed Sam’s humor to continue in the paper [Wecter 260].

May 14 Saturday – Sam wrote “News Item About Steamboat Arrivals,” in the Journal as “Rambler,” praising the “charming” steamboat Kate Kearney, which “came walking the water like a thing of life” [Branch, “Steersman” 206n10]. Orion, upon his return he printed an editorial “commanding the peace [as]. in the manner of Judge Clemens” [Wecter 259]. “It is a great bore to us,” wrote Orion in the Journal, “and doubtless to the public generally.” Sam’s fun was somewhat dampened [Wecter 259].

May 18 Wednesday – Westward emigrant parties were making their way through Hannibal—Mormons headed to Salt Lake and gold seekers to California. The Hannibal Daily Journal of this date ran a typical notice:

Several California teams passed through here this morning. Messrs. T.W. Bunberry, A.J. Price, and Sam’l Fry started this morning with a good, light wagon and four yoke of fine oxen [Benson 22].

Even a few of Sam’s companions went with their families. Sam would recall:

May – A traveling mesmerizer (hypnotist) stopped in Hannibal for a two-week show. Sam volunteered to be a subject, but unlike another boy, failed to go under. When Sam saw all the attention that others got when hypnotized he volunteered again and went along with a ruse that fooled everyone. He even allowed himself to be stuck with needles without flinching, convincing even his mother [Neider 50-58]. Well, Sam could easily fool his mother about many things (or thought he could).