Return to the Mississippi Valley: Day By Day

April 20 Sunday – Sam wrote his sister-in-law, Mollie Clemens, a conventional poem titled “To Mollie” [ET&S 1: 118].

August 3 Sunday – Sam spent Sunday afternoon with the Taylor girls, and wrote the following Wednesday that he “brought away a big bouquet of Ete’s (Esther Taylor) d——d stinking flowers” [MTL 1: 66]

August 5 Tuesday – Henry Clemens wrote to Sam from St. Louis (his letter is not extant). Sam replied
the same day as follows:

My Dear Brother:

August 7 Monday – In St. Louis, Sam boarded with the Paveys, formerly of Hannibal. Sam’s roommate was Jacob H. Burrough (1827-1883) “a journeyman chairmaker with a taste for Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, and Disraeli” [MTB 103]. (See also MTNJ 1: 37n45, & Nov. 1, 1876 letter to Jacob H. Burrough.)

In a Dec. 15, 1900 letter to Jacob’s son, Frank E. Burrough (1865-1903), Sam recalled the boarding house: 

December 19 Tuesday –Orion Clemens married Mary Eleanor (Mollie) Stotts, in Keokuk, Iowa. Orion was visiting there. They left the next morning for Muscatine, but when she became homesick, Orion moved them back to Keokuk.

Early months – Sam began to itch to go to South America after reading an account of coca and the money that might be made harvesting the plant and distributing it in the U.S. [Powers, Dangerous 241].  In 1910, in “The Turning Point of My Life,” Sam remembered a two-volume work on the exploration of the Amazon, that it “told an astonishing tale about coca, a vegetable product of miraculous powers…” [MTL 1: 68n7].

End of year – Sam probably left Orion’s employ late in the year to set type across the river in Warsaw, Illinois [MTL 1: 59]. Powers claims that “Sam blew up over phantom wages and quit.” Either it was temporary employment or Sam regretted the move, because he was back in Keokuk in the New Year [Powers, MT A Life 70]. After the birth of his daughter, Orion took on the compiling of Keokuk’s first city directory, leaving the rest of the business operations to Sam

Fall, Winter—There is some controversy whether Sam worked on the Muscatine Journal and stayed a few months there, or whether he went to St. Louis after a short visit with family. Paine takes this latter position [MTB 102]. Powers claims Sam got rehired as a typesetter on the St. Louis Evening News [Powers, MT A Life 68].

February 13 Tuesday – Sam was once more in St. Louis, back at his former job at the Evening News. Sam lived during this period with the Pavey family [See also MTNJ 1: 37n45].

He attended a play, The Merchant of Venice, put on by the Thespian Society. Sam wrote on Feb. 16:
“I had always thought that this was a comedy, until they made a farce of it” [MTL 1: 48n8].

February 15 Thursday –Sam was awakened by a fire a block and a half away from his rooming house, one that destroyed some valuable horses [MTL 1: 47].

February 16 Friday –Sam dated his letter this day to the editors of the Muscatine Tri-Weekly Journal (his brother Orion and Charles E. H. Wilson) [MTL 1:46-9]. He related the fire and a list of other happenings in St. Louis, including a play of Merchant of Venice. Later that night, Sam awoke to a man beating a woman with a stave in the street, raving she had broken his heart.

February 24–26 Monday – In St. Louis, Sam dated a letter to the Muscatine Journal and summarized St. Louis news, including the new route for St. Louis mail west—it would no longer go to New York first. He also related massacres by Indians in New Mexico. Though progressive beyond his time on racial matters, Sam didn’t care much for Indians. The letter ran on Mar. 9 [MTL 1: 50-51].

February 28 Wednesday – Sam’s letter of Feb. 16 ran in the Muscatine Journal [MTL 1: 46].

January 17 Thursday – Sam spoke without prepared remarks to the Keokuk printers at a celebration of the 150 th anniversary of Ben Franklin’s birth. It was perhaps Sam’s first after dinner speech, presaging his fame as a platform speaker. Sam Clemens as “Mark Twain” would be a great entertainer, perhaps the first American icon of the twentieth century.

January 19 Saturday – The Keokuk Gate City, page 7, reported on Sam’s speech under the headline: “The Printer’s Festival. Birthday of Benjamin Franklin” [Selby 7].

July, mid – Sam visited Hannibal and traveled to the villages of Paris and Florida to provide care and dispose of family property. In Florida he visited his uncle John Quarles, who had sold the old Quarles Farm. He then continued down river to St. Louis, where he tried to become a Mississippi River cub pilot. Orion had supplied Sam with a letter of introduction to their wealthy cousin, James Clemens, Jr. Sam hoped that James might help him secure an apprenticeship as a cub. Sam had no luck.

July 16 Monday – From Sam’s notebook:

“Florida, Mo., 16 July, 55:—Introduced to Miss Jule Violett, Miss Em Tandy, and Miss Em Young”

June, mid – Sam left St. Louis for Keokuk, Iowa, two hundred miles away [MTL 1: 58]. The town had a population of 6,500. Sam was nineteen and had already lived in quite a few places.

June 10 Tuesday – In Keokuk, Sam wrote his mother, Jane Clemens, and sister Pamela in St.
Louis. Jane was now living with her daughter. See insert, courtesy of MTP: Vassar College Library.

My Dear Mother & Sister:

June 11 Monday – Orion became the new owner of the Ben Franklin Book and Job Office printers [MTL 1: 58]. Selby writes that Orion “took possession” this day [6].

June 16 Saturday – Sam’s name appeared in a list of unclaimed letters in St. Louis, indicating he had left the city by this date [MTL 1: 58].

June 25 Wednesday – Sam inscribed: “Samuel L. Clemens / 1856. / June 25 th , 1856” on a copy of J.L. Comstock’s Elements of Geology (1851).

June 27 Wednesday – From Sam’s notebook:

“ …sent out to wash the following: 1 pair heavy Pants; 1 ‘ light do; 4 white Shirts; 4 ’ collars; 2 pair white cotton Socks; 1 summer cravat; 2 white Handkerchiefs; 1 pair twilled Drawers; 1 linen summer Coat/17 [x]. 6/102” [MTNJ 1: 35].

Note: Sam used semicolons in a laundry list! He was a printer. He also loved semicolons.

June 29 Friday – The Keokuk Dispatch described a man believed by the MTP editors to be Sam:

We know a man in this city who would make a prime editor, and we believe that if he has any “genius” at all, it runs in that direction, “ ‘cos” he says there is not a single paper published in town worth reading—and he says that not one of them has any news—and if he published a paper, he says he would make news, and lots of it, and spirited news, too.

June 9 Saturday – Orion and Mollie moved to Keokuk, Iowa [MTL 1: 58]. Powers says this move took place “around the end of March 1855” [MT A Life 69].